11/5/2022 0 Comments Monster girl island xxxIt’s a complete rebirth, and remarkably tasteful. The exterior also got a makeover, with the main entrance moved from the tourist hell of 42nd Street to far less choked 43rd. The reconfigured house feels both grander and cozier, with custom-monogrammed Hogwarts carpeting, phoenix sconces and dragon light fixtures. Formerly a show-killing barn, the theater has reduced its capacity by more than 250 seats down to 1,622, installing a new vaulted ceiling and boxes. The production is the most expensive nonmusical ever mounted on Broadway, with a reported capitalization of $35.5 million, every cent of which can be seen onstage, plus an additional $33 million to remodel the Lyric Theatre, which is likely to remain its home for years. The first of those is anticipatory - a character voicing a simple conclusion we’ve already reached by ourselves: “This is going to be good.” The next two are terrifying. Naturally, the storytelling is more sophisticated here and the acting infinitely superior, but the edge-of-the-seat participation is the same, the shared escapism of a packed theater gasping in unison, fueled by the writers’ knowing use of cliffhangers at the end of all but the final act. But witnessing elevated stagecraft applied to a time-traveling fantasy story of this nature conjures a sense of wonder and excitement that evokes vintage Saturday-matinee serials. Some of the genuine awe factor of movies has been lost in the digital age CGI now makes anything possible. And when you get a load of the illusions pulled off right before your eyes - mostly with old-fashioned sleight-of-hand and crafty lighting only occasionally with more elaborate techno-trickery - it’s not hyperbole to call the show sheer magic. The two plays have a combined running time of almost five-and-a-half suspenseful hours. Playwright Jack Thorne, director John Tiffany and his indispensable movement collaborator Steven Hoggett achieve the near impossible: They mount a persuasive case that this story we all know from novels and/or movies only now has found its nonpareil medium. The ecstatic hype that accompanies the smash London import to Broadway is amply justified, and then some. But anyone still ready to dismiss Harry Potter and the Cursed Child as a cynical brand extension, or a theme-park ride on stage, clearly hasn’t experienced the thrilling theatricality, the pulse-pounding storytelling vitality and the unexpected emotional richness of this unmissable two-part production. Rowling’s globally popular wizardry saga, a series of books that singlehandedly turned entire generations on to the joys of reading imaginative fiction. Back when it was first announced, plenty of observers rolled their eyes in skepticism at the idea of a play that would continue J.K.
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