:::: One Part FANDOM RETROSPECTIVE, One Part ANALYSIS ::::
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a play that premiered in London, 2016. It was met with praise by theatergoers and disdain, even hatred, by those who read the script. Today, there is a...
Just days ago, I posted part of a recent interview with JKR and Co. and ended with this quote:
PHILLIPS: It wasn't as if you had any doubts as to whether you could write? I think the jury's come in on that one.
ROWLING: Yeah, but it's a different genre though, isn't it? You're an arrogant person if you assume that because you can do one thing, you can do everything. And I'm not that person.
And then I added this gif:
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First and foremost, I absolutely love that this book has become a discussion that we are all a part of, influenced by comments and differing viewpoints. Coincidentally, a comment by @FangTheBoarhound threaded nicely into the direction I was heading, but I think I could have easily written entire posts based on something from each and every one of you. I'm grateful to have such awesome fans and you guys are pushing me so hard to give you the absolute best I can offer with this retrospective and analysis (and with my edit of Fred and George, which is coming along nicely).
Here's that comment:
"I think Cursed Child struggles to understand whether it's a book meant for the general public to read, or if it's a script meant for actors to read, study, memorize, and perform. The Cursed Trio seem to not be able to stop themselves from telling us what characters are feeling and how they're responding to things. This is fine if it's a book. We need that information if that's the case. But if it's a play, then it's the actor's job to interpret and add meaning. These annoying little directions setting the emotional context are out of place in either case. If it's a script, get rid of them. They don't belong (and neither do we as readers in that case!). And if it's a book, we would obviously be getting more explanation, in which case these small things they've thrown in come across as condescending and controlling. Don't *tell* me how they feel -- *show* me. Make it obvious in the writing. But clearly, CC does not know what it is, and so then anything it tries to be, it fails at."
I, alone, can write it
I've already covered why the play doesn't know what it is (not a mystery, Harry is a minor character, 8th story, etcetera), but it seems that indistinction can also be said of the script itself.
This critique is not foreign to J.K. Rowling. In fact, the only other time she stepped away from novel writing was the screenplay for Fantastic Beasts (which I enjoyed), and the general consensus from critics was that the movie didn't understand it was not a book.
See, many movies are screenplays adapted from popular novels, which means they are typically written by someone other than the author. Different insights can be discovered when someone else is steering the ship. They can find a seamless narrative thread that feels succinct enough for the screen, in a way that leaves unnecessary elements of the story on the cutting room floor - elements that would otherwise have been difficult to dismiss for the originator of that concept. In the case of Fantastic Beasts, JKR had total carte blanche to do whatever she liked. That was part of her deal.
