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Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Sweeps the UK's Version of the Tonys
io9.gizmodo.com: Much like Broadway does with the Tonys in the U.S, the Society of London Theatre issues Olivier Awards to recognize the United Kingdom’s best theatrical productions. This year, they pretty much all went to Harry Potter: The Next Generation.
I read “Harry Potter and The Cursed Child” earlier this year. My reaction to it was pretty bland. It’s really not that good of a story, and the writing is quite poor. I was very disappointed with this play overall. That being said, however, I am glad that the show is getting so much recognition. There has been an incredibly amount of back lash from the Harry Potter franchise; whether religious folks are upset about the witchcraft, or more religious folks are upset about Dumbledore’s sexuality. To have “Harry Potter and The Cursed Child” make such a splash in the international theatre scene is relieving. It seems that the franchise is moving out of it’s so called morally grey area and back into critical and popular acclaim. I would assume that we will see many more Harry Potter shows in the future. I am excited to see what comes next.
I did read some of the play, enough to say that I sort of agree with some of the critiques the play got, especially considering the movement of the storyline. If anything, the story seemed more like a fanfiction I would read rather than an official play (in fact, I bet some fanfiction would be better than the play, just considering the sheer amount of fanfiction there is, and knowing full well that not all of it is garbage, trash, yes, but definitely not garbage) But what excites me about this play and the acceptance (in terms of awards and popularity) it received, is the fact that a play, a fan play really something on the equivalences of either Heathers the musical or Bleach (the anime) the musical, has been liked by so many people and not widely mocked. I understand that most of that comes from the fact the books (and movies) were loved by people from all over the world, and thus any spin-off of it will always get that bias, but this play is truly a nerdy and almost kiddy dream come true. The fanciful creation of this play gives me hope of a wider audience accepting more sort of nerdy and kidish-imagination content, as something that could be respected as not necessarily full seriousness, but with sincerity.
2 comments:
I read “Harry Potter and The Cursed Child” earlier this year. My reaction to it was pretty bland. It’s really not that good of a story, and the writing is quite poor. I was very disappointed with this play overall. That being said, however, I am glad that the show is getting so much recognition. There has been an incredibly amount of back lash from the Harry Potter franchise; whether religious folks are upset about the witchcraft, or more religious folks are upset about Dumbledore’s sexuality. To have “Harry Potter and The Cursed Child” make such a splash in the international theatre scene is relieving. It seems that the franchise is moving out of it’s so called morally grey area and back into critical and popular acclaim. I would assume that we will see many more Harry Potter shows in the future. I am excited to see what comes next.
I did read some of the play, enough to say that I sort of agree with some of the critiques the play got, especially considering the movement of the storyline. If anything, the story seemed more like a fanfiction I would read rather than an official play (in fact, I bet some fanfiction would be better than the play, just considering the sheer amount of fanfiction there is, and knowing full well that not all of it is garbage, trash, yes, but definitely not garbage) But what excites me about this play and the acceptance (in terms of awards and popularity) it received, is the fact that a play, a fan play really something on the equivalences of either Heathers the musical or Bleach (the anime) the musical, has been liked by so many people and not widely mocked. I understand that most of that comes from the fact the books (and movies) were loved by people from all over the world, and thus any spin-off of it will always get that bias, but this play is truly a nerdy and almost kiddy dream come true. The fanciful creation of this play gives me hope of a wider audience accepting more sort of nerdy and kidish-imagination content, as something that could be respected as not necessarily full seriousness, but with sincerity.
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