The Tony-winning “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” has finally arrived in Denver after debuting on stage a decade ago, and it is, by any standard, a magical production that embraces fans while reintroducing the series for new viewers.
Those newcomers, and there seemed to be more than a few at the June 3 show at the Buell Theatre, may have found it a bit dizzying; characters and references fly in the unapologetically dense dialogue, where the speed of delivery and British accents of varying heaviness can make it difficult to follow at first.
But who needs backstory when you’ve got pyrotechnics, quick-change costumes, 3D projections and the general grab-bag of illusion and spectacle that had many in the audience cheering from the start?
The original story, by “Harry Potter” creator and author J.K. Rowling, along with Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, is set a decade after the events of the final Potter entry, 2007’s “The Deathly Hallows,” and The Battle of Hogwarts that toppled big, bad Voldemort. That means it’s a sequel of sorts but also a continuation of previous themes, such as family legacy, parent-child dynamics, and yes, lots of adolescent magic and doubt. (Why mess with something that works?)
And yet, “Cursed Child” arrives with its own identity. The festive, charming and energetic of the Broadway production is packed with as much nostalgia as new characters that are doppelgangers for the original series’ heroes and villains, and who often challenge our assumptions about their infamous families.
Playing at the Buell Theatre through June 21 (see for details), the show focuses on the sons of original protagonist-antagonist duo Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Here, Potter’s boy Albus Severus Potter and Malfoy’s heir Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy meet on the train to Hogwarts, where a montage soon spirits them through the years until they run into a unique and dangerous opportunity. A Time-Turner prototype has been discovered that would let the boys travel back to save the late Cedric Diggory, a classmate who died tragically during the original series’ Triwizard Tournament.
Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger’s daughter, Rose, is mostly sidelined here, but the adult versions of Weasley (played with crack comic timing by Matt Harrington) and Granger (an assertive Rachel Leslie) help propel the narrative while giving fans the repartee they expect.
The journey, at the request of Cedric’s ailing dad, Amos, shifts into gear as the boys and new character Delphi (Julia Nightingale), a young, punkish caretaker for Amos, drink Polyjuice Potion so they can steal the Time-Turner from the Ministry of Magic. It’s overflowing with plot twists, surprisingly robust action scenes, and a surfeit of “how did they do that?” special effects that handily sell the idea that these are powerful yet uncertain people still finding their way in the world.
The Ministry, it should be noted, is the same office where an adult Potter works as Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and adult Granger works as Minister of Magic. Without saying too much, it was a joy to see new and familiar faces stalk the pivotal meeting-location of the 9 3/4 platform at King’s Cross Station, the train to Hogwarts, and the cavernous halls of the centuries-old British school. The brilliantly versatile sets and props, which blur together at times, sell all of it with ease.
The leads can be overwrought, shouting lines across the stage while the Gothic-style doorways, sharp directional lighting and ooh-ahh practical effects do their complicated dance. Albus, as played by the fresh-faced Adam Grant Morrison, has a trebly but textured voice that cuts through the theater handily, even if his breathlessness steps on the dialogue at times. The cast is never anything less than committed, and the direction by Tiffany pays mind to each actor’s strengths, be they Shakespearean speechifying or nuanced, parent-child chats.
And yet, the complex plot comes down to the bond between Albus and Scorpius, who are living in their fathers’ shadows, bullied and searching, as their connections with their dads falter. Adult Potter, played with ceaseless intensity by Nick Dillenburg, looks, sounds and feels like the original article, but it’s wife Ginny (a wonderfully crisp Abbi Hawk) who brings a clear-eyed confidence to the at-times nebulous story.
David Fine as Scorpius does an enormous amount of heavy lifting by injecting urgency and pathos, despite his character’s timid personality. His anxiety feels earned, even if most of his lines also feel calibrated for maximum pathos, if not volume.
While the sets, lighting, costume changes and visual effects are stunners, the music by composer and arranger Imogen Heap is shockingly generic, like the copyright-free soundtrack of a YouTube ad, blandly calibrated and recalling nothing of John Williams’ iconic themes for the films. (Those films are obvious influences here in set, prop, costume design, and the actors’ characterizations.) The weak score is even more noticeable amid the otherwise strong, seamless stagecraft — just as the AI-slop backgrounds stood out It makes zero sense and was a constant annoyance.
Fortunately, the rest of the play (it’s not a musical, as my daughter had expected) hits the right notes even as it rewrites Potter canon and luxuriates in its ending, hitting a runtime of nearly 3 hours. This is a substantive chunk of drama, action and wonder that would play well on screen, but that underscores the utter magic of theater — the high-stakes, high-flying stories that come to life when the lights go down.
Whatever your relationship to the Potter series, it’s a joyous, at times agreeably jumbled experience that was worth the wait.
