REVIEW: Harry Potter and The Cursed Child

HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD is not a play, it's a theatrical experience. It's not a show, it's an epic spectacle. It's a battle of good versus evil. It's a journey through a wondrous world of magic and sorcery… fantasy and witchcraft…it's Shakespearean.

In full disclosure, I saw the very first Harry Potter movie more than twenty years ago, and it was not my thing. In fact, I could never understand the global hysteria that's surrounded the Harry Potter cannon?

However, I was more than pleasantly surprised at the scale of this extravaganza. The production currently at Hollywood's Pantages Theater is a journey into the bonds that define friendships and the ties and burdens that create and ultimately destroy family.

With hues of Phantom of the Opera, Hamlet, and Tolkien's Lord of The Rings, Potter takes audiences into the deep recesses of imagination, visions,     and horror.

It's not just theater, it's illusion and magic on stage. With levitating people, the power of flight right before your eyes, and illusions that make audiences gasp and question, how did that just happen, the nearly three-hour performance dazzles and amazes.

I found the first act long and tedious with way too much emphasis put on relationship building and boring beats lagging to get to plot, while the second act exploded in psychedelic displays of cataclysmic drama.

Without question, the most memorable and dynamic aspect of the entire production were the high-tech special effects, the likes of which I've never seen on a Broadway Stage. Disappearing bodies, disembodied floating heads, laser-like fight scenes, and the illusion of time travel and teleportation, and more were quite astounding.

The downside about this narrative however is its exclusionary quality. If you're unfamiliar with the World of Harry Potter as we were, there was way too much inside vernacular, jargon, and back story!

To put it plainly, I was completely lost for nearly the entirety of the First Act? Unfamiliar characters, bizarre unexplained references, long expository monologues I found at times pedantic and redundant,  inside jokes directed only at avid fans of the brand, and scenes where characters screamed unnecessarily at each other left me feeling left out and nearing disinterested.

However, close to the first act break, I was lassoed and suddenly completely captivated.

A boy in search of meaning in life, while wrestling with the rejection and lack of a loving father is universally relatable and the playwright, Jack Thorne, and Story by J. K. Rowling, Jack Thorne, and John Tiffany hit a homerun with pathos, subtext, and empathy. The need for a father's love and approval is not lost on this reporter.

One of the most resounding themes explored in Potter is that of friendship and sacrifice.

Through time, space, worlds, and dimensions, friendship persists and love conquers all.

Harry Potter and The Cursed Child runs now through June 22, 2025. Tickets start at $30 and there's a ticket lottery as well.

Find out more at Broadwayinhollywood.com

Michael J. Herman is Editor-In-Chief and Critic At Large for Luxury-Media Group. Follow him on Substack.com.