Poof!
That describes me during intermission as I walked out on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. This is the first A-list performance I've abandoned midstream ever. And with ticket prices at the Dr. Philips Center for the Performing Arts in Orlando, the cost of parking, the hassle (and I do mean hassle) of driving up there and back, it really pains me to do so. But I just couldn't really bear it any longer.
My beef was multifold.
First, I admit, was my fault. I should know by now to stop thinking I can cheap out and buy nosebleed seats and still enjoy the play. I can't. I can't see the performance, I can't hear the performers (especially with bad English accents), and it just feels like I'm not even there. I may as well be watching something on YouTube -- on my phone no less. And when you're in the cheap seats, you get the cheap seat denizens. They're rude by coming in late, they talk and use their phones during the performance, they're even uglier. Well, maybe that's unfair. Maybe.
Second, I also fault myself for not properly doing at least a bit of homework before I bought my ticket a couple months ago. I thought it was a musical, it's not. I thought it would be set in the old skool Harry Potter days, it (mostly) wasn't, I thought it would have good actors, it didn't, I thought it would have a plot that was coherent, sensible and not a train wreck, it didn't. I should have at least been a little more aware about some essentials such as Hermione being black. It took me a good hour into the thing before I realized that Ron hadn't remarried some black chick - no, that WAS Hermione. She was cast as an Black British Witch? Not sure the correct and appropriate terminology, LOL. Now it's cool with me, but caught off guard, I was so confused. And, myself only knowing the movies, not knowing the books at all, the supposed ambiguity as to whether Hermione could be portrayed as black or white was an option to me since, again, from the movie viewpoint, the casting should be of someone similar in looks to Emma Watson. Enough about that.
The pacing was breakneck and seemingly hodgepodge all over the place with either huge plot points skipped over or multiple things repeated ad infinitem. Yes, kid, we get it, some people think you might be the son of Voldemort, you said that twenty times already. And yes Aldus, it's tough living in the shadow of your famous dad, Harry, we got it - noted.
The magic effects were kinda okay, but our production of this thing is no way near what other cities got. I didn't stay for the above pictured effect but I can feel confident in saying I'm sure Orlando's effects were nowhere near as good. Other pics I've seen online also looked much better from the wand fight between Harry and Draco which was pretty paltry actually in our theater comparatively to the walking on the top of the train effect. I guess the budget was slashed? Not sure. Slashed along with the length of the overall show. Leaving at intermission at the two and a half hour mark I think there was only about another 30 or 45 minutes left. Yes, a long show but cut down from its original length -- and as such, missing a lot of substance.
Would that have saved it? Not for me. My patience and my bladder were having no more of it at the timeframe I gave it as it were.
Ah well, the good part of it all...with no other cars in my way, my exodus from the parking garage was Expeditious Stupendous!
