Review of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway

I watch a ton of theater in my free time whenever I’m in a city with a thriving theater scene, and I go to New York a lot for work because I work in theater there.

But when I end up going and my family comes up, it pushes me outside of my artsy, serious theater zone and forces me to see shows I probably would have never seen because they’re not something I can get into for free or TDF doesn’t have them because they sell well.

So this trip when I came up for work, my sister asked to see a show she had heard of. Which means tourist shows because she’s not as deep in the hole as I am when it comes to this.

So we landed on Harry Potter, and I sighed when I saw the literal last row for a Saturday night performance was going to cost us about $100 each with ticket protection. But onwards we went, and then we got comfortable after a long day. When they say the Lyric Theatre has the best legroom out of all the Broadway theaters, I can confirm. I’ve never had that much space.

The only problem for me was the guy next to me kept elbowing me in the gut, which sucked, but all in all the theater itself was really nice. We showed up an hour before because we got that email saying to do so, but then there was no line to get in and we had an hour to burn looking up at the decor and ooh and aahing at the merch.

Let’s get into the review, I’ve rambled enough!

The sons of Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy try to change the past and deal with the consequences of doing so.

I was not familiar with the Cursed Child before I ended up going to this, but I am very familiar with the Harry Potter series. Like so many other people my age, I ended up reading the series as a child and was obsessed with it for a hot minute.

I am a proud Slytherin, by the way, and I think that the house is deeply misunderstood—this play shows that not all Slytherins are stereotypically conniving and trying to stab people in the back.

Instead of recalling the entire plot of this show, let’s go over my thoughts instead. Some reviews I do summaries, but I think the target audience for this play are people who are kind of already familiar with the lore.

I think this stage production does an extremely good job when it comes to special effects and the gotcha moments. That’s one of the biggest reasons to see the show if you can get a cheap ticket in my humble opinion if you’re into the world and lore of HP.

Whether it’’s people appearing in the bed that weren’t there before or the trapdoor I spotted in the telephone booth, there’s a lot of really cool moments.

The dementors are also a fascinating part of the show when they appear in Scorpius’ arc where he has to figure everything out. I was able to figure a chunk of them out because I was paying close attention after a certain point, but I think this was a clever production because of it.

The highlights of the actors for me were the kid who played Scorpius, who is the most fleshed out protagonist in this play, and the one who plays Ron. The girl who plays Moaning Myrtle is also fantastic when she makes her grand appearance about halfway through the show. I wasn’t a fan of the character of Albus.

While he does go through some character growth at the very end of the show when it’s time to take on the antagonist, he doesn’t really grow as a character. He just kind of stays the same, and I wasn’t a fan of that.

A key complaint I thought about the show as well was the fact it dragged on way too long. I know the Broadway version used to be split into two different parts, but I didn’t think there was enough to sustain the piece for this length.

I was getting bored around the end of the first act, and it felt like sections of the second act could be trimmed because they felt unnecessary. I liked the arc when it came to Scorpius going into the future and having to take matters into his own hands, but the plot twists that come after it had me sighing.

If I had a watch, I would’ve been checking it in that moment.

Overall Thoughts

It’s a decent show, but my sister and I agreed that we were glad that we didn’t spend more than we did on it.

Our seats were perfect for the view, but the audience is full of tourists and I think people don’t realize that you shouldn’t lean forward in a Broadway theater if you can help it—I understand some people can’t help it.

The guy in front of me was hunched at certain moments and sitting at the edge of his seat, which cut off my view of the stage during certain scenes.

But overall this was a great show for the production value, but not the greatest unless you’re a massive, potentially diehard, Harry Potter fan.

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