* Warning: This review contains plot spoilers *
During our New York trip, we decided to take a day (it really does take a day!) to watch Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway. I was excited to watch this Broadway show since I am a very big Harry Potter fan. For most of my family this was their first experience with Harry Potter including my sister who started reading the books after seeing this Broadway show.
During the Harry Potter show I was really amazed at the special effects they used to make this show come to life. Some of the effects they used included some light to make it look like they were using the different spells; red light for when they used Incendio and white light at the tip of the wand for Lumos. They also have very cool special effect when Albus and Scorpius use the Polyjuice potion and make themselves look like members of the Ministry of Magic so that they can get in. Following that the two of them get sucked into the Ministry of Magic. I am not sure how they do it, but the effect left me astounded. Not to mention them using Floo Powder to travel through fire places. This effect was not as breathtaking as the others since it looked like they came off a slide. There was also the effect in Hermione’s office with her book shelf where Albus and Scorpius get sucked up by the books trying to find the time turner. Along with these various effects there is also a distortion effect when ever the used the time turner to travel back in time. I think it was a very thin screen where they projected the effect on to. Close to the beginning of the story Harry and Draco Malfoy have an argument about the safety of they’re kids. This argument leads up to them dueling each other. Again, there are the different lights that show they different spells along with them turning upside down when the other uses Wingarduim Leviosa.
Finally, they have amazing special effect to finish it off when the prophecy about the dark lord and all the walls have the text from the prophecy written on it. You can’t see the text until that moment which makes me think they use some sort of UV light to make it so that you can see the glowing words of prophecy when they shine the light on it.
I think that my main highlight of the show were the special effects since they were all so stunning and added so much to the show.
Part 1
After the fight between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy about their child’s safety the two best friends get separated at school. Ow they don’t have any classes together and all the teachers are watching to make sure they aren’t interacting with each other. Harry even gives Professor McGonagall the Marauders Map so that she can make sure they aren’t together. One thing that didn’t make sense to me was that Albus was learning how to use Lumos after his dad, Harry talking about him going to Hogsmeade. This doesn’t make sense because Lumos which is a first-year spell while you can only go to Hogsmeade after you’re a third year. During the first part they use a few of the different special effects I mentioned including them getting sucked into the telephone booth, using the Floo Powder to travel between fireplaces and the Polyjuice potion to make them look like adults. My main highlight of Part 1 was the wizard duel between Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter because the light effect made me think that the spells were being cast.
Part 2
In the second part they traveled back in time to the Triwizard Tournament to try and save Cedric Diggory from the Death Eaters. They try to thwart Harry from winning the Triwizard Tournament so that Cedric can live and graduate from Hogwarts. Afterwards they figure out that Delphi is not a relative of Amos Diggory and is a child of You Know Who and wants to bring him back. They travel back to the night where Harry’s parents get killed and send a message to Harry in present time in a very clever way. Since Harry still has his blanket Albus thought that he could write something on the blanket in the past and then the message would show up in the future where Harry could read it and bring help.
I really enjoyed The Cursed Child play. My favourite part was the special effects since they made the show seem so much more realistic. I really recommend watching this play since it was a great experience for me.
DS has a whole lot of stuff to juggle in life already. In addition to school and homework, he needs to deal with cadets, LOL and social life.
