Tag: drama

Review: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, J. K. Rowling (???), Jack Thorne, John Tiffany

Posted on by Dana

I didn’t go to a midnight release party, but I did drive up to the local Barnes & Noble some time yesterday afternoon to pick up Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. The Barnes & Noble had a power outage. The line was really long, and at first I thought it was because so many people were there to get the new Harry Potter book. Well, they were, mostly, but the line was mainly long because two cashiers were filling out receipts by hand.

Anyway, if you know me and know this blog, you probably know I am a pretty big Harry Potter fan. I may not be the biggest fan you know, but I’m the biggest one I know. I have read all the books multiple times. I have seen all the movies multiple times. I will have a ticket for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them when it comes out. I am on Pottermore and have been sorted into Ravenclaw at Hogwarts and Thunderbird at Ilvermorny. My cat is named Bellatrix. Appropriately, she is a black cat. I have read many of the articles on Pottermore several times, so the new canon is pretty well lodged in my head. I even wrote a fanfic for NaNoWriMo last November that imagined what Albus Potter’s first year at Hogwarts might be like.

I didn’t like this book much. I don’t know how much J. K. Rowling had to do with it, really, but it didn’t sound like her at all. It reads like fan fiction, and not very good fan fiction. Not only that, but a couple of things revealed in the play directly contradict canon that has been released on Pottermore or in interviews. Rowling is notoriously bad at remembering she’s said things, so that could explain it, but it seems sloppy to me.

For those who want a brief synopsis of the plot, it picks up at Platform 9¾ and retreads the epilogue of the last book, picking up with Albus Potter befriending Scorpius Malfoy on the train, much to cousin Rose Granger-Weasley’s disapproval. The boys become fast friends and are sorted into the same house at Hogwarts. I won’t tell you which one, but it was the first of several wrong moves (in my opinion). The two boys are unpopular loners at school and don’t much like it. Albus Potter overhears his father argue with Amos Diggory about using a Time Turner found in the possession of Theodore Nott to travel back in time to save Cedric Diggory. Amos is cared for by Cedric’s cousin Delphi (no reader will be fooled, like Albus was, that she was not who she said she was). Albus and Delphi concoct a plan to steal the Time Turner from Hermione, who is keeping it in her office at the MInistry for Magic (I won’t tell you her job, but it was one of the few satisfying aspects of the book). As you might guess, everything goes wrong when Albus convinces Scorpius to abscond from the Hogwarts Express and go back in time to save Cedric.

OK, where to start. The characters do not sound at all like themselves. I have read these books so many times, and I have immersed myself in everything I could find. These are not the characters I know and love. Harry particularly strikes a wrong note, as does Draco Malfoy. Ron and Ginny were just about the only major characters who sounded more or less like themselves to me. Even Albus Potter, whom we meet only in the epilogue, strikes a major false note based on the character I read in that single chapter. The characterization alone leads me to believe Rowling had very little hand in this play, and I can’t imagine why she rubber-stamped the results. The plot is also convoluted. Even for a story set in the wizarding world, where crazy things are expected, this plot strains credulity. I have big problems with the character of Delphi’s existence. Once it’s revealed who she is, the first thing I wondered was when did that happen, and the second was how. You will see when you get there, if you read this book. But that is not the only part that is confounding. The actions of Albus and Scorpius in just about every instance when they go back are ridiculous, as are those of their parents. And the last time? They send a message asking for help in the most gobsmackingly unbelievable way.

I expected a play would be different. I was prepared not to like it as much because the depth of world-building and characterization would be taken on by actors and stagecraft I wouldn’t get to see. Even taking the fact that this is a play into account, I was surprised by how much I didn’t like it because I was fully prepared to give it a real chance. My mind was way more open than it would have been for just about any other book of this type.

I managed to avoid spoilers, so I won’t discuss them anymore here, but if you want to follow me in the comments to discuss them, we can move the conversation there. I think I’m just going to pretend this book doesn’t exist and enjoy the rest of the stories J. K. Rowling has (actually) written. As flawed as my own fanfic is—especially toward the end when I was running out of steam and trying to meet the word count—I actually prefer it to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

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Re-Reading King Lear: “Read Thou This Challenge”

Posted on by Dana

I have mentioned before that I’m re-reading some books in preparation for teaching them. I have taught King Lear before, but it has been a few years, and a play as complex as Lear demands a re-read before any preparation for teaching it.

At one point, if you had asked me what my favorite Shakespeare play was, I probably would have said King Lear. I can’t say with certainty that my answer is still the same, but it’s because there are so many of his plays that I love. In fact, most often, I say it’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I do love teaching Shakespeare. There is so much richness, and if I do agree with Harold Bloom on anything, I think I can at least agree that Shakespeare seemed to understand the spectrum of human nature like no other writer (I am not sure I’d say he invented the human). This play in particular examines the complexity of family in some really fascinating ways. I will be curious to see what sort of a backstory my students imagine for this family. Why would Goneril and Regan cut their father out? What had their childhood been like? Was Cordelia’s different? Ian McKellen says he imagines that perhaps Cordelia is the daughter of Lear’s second, more beloved wife, whom he lost in childbirth, and that when he looks on Cordelia, he sees this beloved wife. I find I like that idea quite a lot.

As I re-read, I decided to listen to a production. The Naxos Audio production is brilliant. A word to the wise: if you listen to this production and follow along, be mindful of the fact that it uses the First Folio text, which differs from some published editions of the play that also incorporate the First Quarto. Lear is played in this audio book by the great Paul Scofield. It was published to commemorate Scofield’s own 80’s birthday (Lear mentions being “four score” in the play). He is brilliant in the role. I actually teared up listening to his reunion with Cordelia in Act IV, and his tears over her death were also hard to take. Lear is hard; he casts away the daughter and servant (Kent) who love him in favor of those who tell him what he wants to hear, and finds out his mistake too late. He’s a hard man to feel empathy for, but Scofield definitely manages the task. Kenneth Branagh plays the Fool and Toby Stephens plays Edmund.

In addition to the Naxos Audio production, I also listened to a Shakespeare Appreciated production that includes commentary. I found the commentary, particularly the historical context, extremely helpful. If you are a student or really want to wring all the understanding out of the play that you can, I would recommend this audio version. I don’t think the dramatization is as good as the Naxos Audio production, but it is still good, and the commentary is especially helpful.

I am waiting on tenterhooks for James Shapiro’s new book The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 to come out (October 6!). Very excited to learn even more about the historical context that produced this play, especially because Shakespeare changed the ending familiar to audiences to a tragic one in which SPOILERS pretty much everyone dies.

Rating: ★★★★★

I’m counting this as my book set in Kent for the Reading England Challenge. Much of the action at the end of the play takes place at Dover. I’m counting it for the Historical Fiction Challenge, too, as it is set in ancient Britain, and Shakespeare was writing in Renaissance England. It does imagine a pre-Christian era in Britain. I can’t count it for R. I. P., as I started it before the challenge. It might qualify, though, if you want to read it for that challenge. Gloucester’s eyes being gouged out is the most ghastly thing in Shakespeare, if you ask me.

 

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Review: The Piano Lesson, August Wilson

Posted on by Dana

I am reading my way through the list of texts I will teach in AP in the coming year, and as August Wilson is an important writer who often appears on the test, I found myself reading this play. I’m so glad I did. I have read and taught Fences, which might be his more famous play, but I found this play to be much more exquisite, and I liked the characters a great deal more.

The Piano Lesson is the story of a family piano. An intricately carved work of art, the piano’s legs include family portraits carved by Willie Boy, the family patriarch. Willie Boy, a slave owned by the Sutter family, was asked by Sutter to carve the faces of his wife and child, whom Sutter had sold away, into the piano to please Sutter’s wife. Instead, Sutter carves the faces of his entire family. Willie Boy’s son Boy Charles steals the piano because he believes it more rightfully belongs to his family than it does to the Sutters, The piano entwines the two families even in death. Siblings Boy Willie and Berniece spend most of the play arguing over the piano. Bernice wants to keep it because of its importance to the family, but Boy Willie wants to sell it in order to buy the deceased Sutter’s land.

There are many things going on in this play: the tension between enjoying art for art’s sake instead of more “practical” objects, such as land; the importance of family; what it means to be successful in life. The piano lesson of the title is really the argument that Boy Willie and Berniece are having about the piano: would it be better for the family to keep it or to sell to buy Sutter’s land? It’s an important conversation to have, as the play is set at a time when many African Americans did not have either a family history they knew and could cling to or an opportunity to own land.

Wilson won a Pulitzer for this play, and I can see how a production would be quite something to watch. However, Toni Morrison makes a successful argument for simply reading the play in her introduction, and it is indeed a delight to read as well. I would consider this an important work of the Great Migration and of American drama in general. I’m not sure if this would make a good movie—I think it is meant to be on the stage. It does look like it’s been made into a movie at least once.

Rating: ★★★★★

This story is probably set no later than the 1930’s, solidly in the period of the Great Migration, as Berniece and Boy Willie’s grandparents had been slaves, and Sutter would have had to have still been around at the beginning of the play. However, as the play also includes a truck (that is one of the liveliest characters in the story, I will add), vehicles have to be somewhat common. As it was published in 1988, it counts as historical fiction.

 

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