Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: The Cursed Father
“How many people have to die for the Boy Who Lived?”
-Amos Diggory, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
I grew up devouring the Harry Potter books like a soul-sucking dementor, placing my name on the pre-order list whenever a blessed release date approached. I’d burst with excitement when I held a fresh copy in my hands, flipping to the first page to pick up where I had left off in Harry’s magical adventures at Hogwarts. When my boyfriend surprised me with tickets to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in New York for my 30th birthday I was as happy as a house-elf. Expecting magic tricks on stage that would befuddle and amaze, which they did, I was mostly stunned by the storytelling, the intricate layers into the psyche of Harry Potter, reminding me how dark his childhood and adolescence was. I watched him on stage as a husband with three kids, an employee of the Ministry of Magic, wrestling with past traumas that affected his role as a father. Harry not only lost friends on his path to destroying Voldemort—he himself escaped death many times. The play is a Dark Mark, summoning Harry’s childhood memories that we’re all familiar with. The play doesn’t ever reference who the cursed child is because there are several cursed children. All children feel cursed and alone in their sentiments, as if the world is against them and no one can understand. With The Cursed Child we reconnect with our favorite wizard who isn’t entirely recovered from his youth.
Harry’s first trauma was losing his parents at the murderous hands of Voldemort before he was even out of the crib. He was taken in by the abusive, surly Dursley’s, who stuffed him in a cupboard, hopeful he would one day disappear while mollycoddling their own son, Dudley. Raised in an unloving home, and cursed by the absence of his parents, leaves a void in Harry that is felt in the entire Harry Potter series. For the first time on stage we’re presented with an older Harry whose loss of his parents affects him differently, when, as a father himself, he doesn’t have an example of how to parent. Harry struggles to understand his middle child Albus who’s resentful of having a famous father and is so different from his two siblings—he’s the sole member of the Potter family sorted into Slytherin. There’s an honest moment where Harry confesses to his wife Ginny that he wishes Albus were more like his other two children, James and Lily. Even when you become a parent, you’re still human with emotional baggage that doesn’t disappear the moment it’s your turn to be someone’s role model.
Nightmares disrupt Harry’s sleep again as flashbacks play out on stage, proof that his childhood isn’t buried in the past with the deaths of countless loved ones who have sacrificed themselves for him—he is still very much struggling to find peace. In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix we know that Harry is visited at night by the painful memory of Cedric Diggory’s death, a classmate unnecessarily killed by Voldemort and witnessed by Harry at the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Dudley mocks the screams and anguish coming from Harry’s bedroom as he calls Cedric’s name. Watching someone die—resonating more when you’re fourteen-years-old than an infant—leaves a permanent mark more painful than the lightning bolt scar etched on Harry’s forehead. He’s reminded of his guilt when Cedric’s father Amos visits him, begging him to use the rumored last remaining time-turner to bring his son back. Amos tearfully tells Harry that Cedric was a spare—he was never in Voldemort’s murderous plans. As a father now, Harry must not only mourn his classmate’s reckless death but the grief and loss that Amos suffers for his child. That’s a burdensome responsibility for anybody.
The book series ended with the Battle of Hogwarts and this historic event is spoken about in the play with reverence. It was traumatic for the teenaged Harry to experience and still is for the grown up Harry, as it was the day he lost Lupin and Tonks (leaving their daughter orphaned), Fred Weasley, and Professor Snape, all who died rather than betray Harry. It’s a pattern in Harry’s life that people repeatedly die to protect him: his parents, Professor Dumbledore, Mad-Eye Moody, Sirius Black, Dobby; even a part of Harry had to die to end Voldemort’s reign. With this eighth story on Broadway we finally see how these tragic events follow Harry into adulthood, how fame as a child affects him differently as a father when it compromises his relationship with Albus who has a difficult time living in his dad’s shadow.
Every child in this play is cursed by their lineage, bogged down by perception and expectation, unable to escape their fathers’ reputations, failing to carve out their own identities. It’s fascinating to watch how the younger generation is affected by the actions and experiences of their predecessors, and with some magic, Albus is even able to witness some of the darker moments in his father’s life. We might not have magic to travel back in time and observe our parents’ history, but we can examine our own upbringing, talk to our parents and caregivers about the experiences that molded them so we can better understand them and begin to heal ourselves. I think it’s so important to make a generational change when we’re raising our offspring. We should confront our problems and resolve them so that our children aren’t inadvertently afflicted by our issues. Watching Harry, we learn that his cursed life doesn’t end with him. It’s a lesson to look within ourselves and break any generational curses that might’ve been passed down so we can raise the healthiest, happiest children we can.