What's missing from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child's school edition

I've always been interested in the stories of Harry and his second-born son Albus Severus Potter. I read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child the day the script was available to purchase. Two years after that, I bought two tickets so my best friend and I could attend the Broadway production in New York City. Recently, over two dozen schools in the United States of America were given clearance by the Broadway Licensing Guild to perform an abridgement of the play. As it happens, one of those schools is near my home and I even knew the young actor playing Voldemort. Here are my thoughts on what shouldn't have been left out.

Seeing the bigger picture

Imagine if you will reading only the Shrieking Shack chapters of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It would make for an interesting experience to be thrust into a situation where a young boy and his two friends stumbled into deadly peril and decide in the end to side with the murderer. It works better if you know that Harry has been led to believe that he is an orphan because of the decisions of one of the people in that shack. Ideally, you would have experienced Harry's struggles with blood relatives and the solace he finds in is unofficial family for the first two books. But having only some of the context still helps you appreciate the story.

The high school edition feels a little bit like that. Of course the play is a monumental challenge with an emotionally demanding storyline and complex dialogue to learn. The adults and children are normally played by different generations in professional productions, so it was great to see underclassmen being perfectly cast because they channeled their natural energy while older students used their life experiences to enrich the more demanding portrayals of the parents and teachers.

Where I found it difficult to appreciate it in that format was the payoff for storylines. Near the end of the play, Draco offers to hug his son. In the script, this is followed by "then they sort of half hug in a very awkward way. Draco smiles." This is actually a follow-up to the alternate universe in which Draco is much more like his father and head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. At a moment when Draco is harsh to his son, Scorpius reminds his father of the faith Astoria Malfoy had in her husband. Scorpius ecstatic reaction to seeing Harry again is poignant because of everything that was lost to him when Harry did not defeat Lord Voldemort.

The high school edition tells a great story along the way and the production I saw here in Massachusetts was realkly well-cast. But it brings you close to the emotional core of the story and then stops short. It is still a fantastical thing for any young cast to put it on and celebrates the imagination and contribution of the younger generation.