Of Hogwarts and Hamlet … Because students in the Harry Potter novels board the train to Hogwarts at Platform 9-3/4 at King’s Cross railway station in London, King’s
By: Pam Hersh
Harry met Juliet — and Romeo — two Friday
nights ago in Princeton, but their fans never con´
nected or showed any willingness to interact.
It might be a productive sociological and cul´
tural event to take a magic wand or pixie dust and
arrange for a meeting of the minds between
Shakespeare and Rowling aficionados. Perhaps
we need to start with matchmaker Cliff, as in Clif´
fsNotes.
Although I have been accused of wearing at´
tention-grabbing outfits, I was barely noticeable
July 20 when I attended the Palmer Square festi´
val celebrating everything Harry Potter. Without a
broom, wand or sword — only my funky orange
and purple and green earrings — I was making
my way to McCarter Theatre to see the New Jer´
sey Opera production of “Romeo and Juliette”
and got hijacked by the pre-“Harry Potter and the
Deadly Hallows” book release block party organ´
ized and hosted by Princeton toy store JaZams.
Many individuals in the reportedly
2,500-person crowd of predominantly pre-teens
and pre-pre-teens, plus their grown-up escorts,
were wearing costumes far more interesting than
my attire.
The 10-year-old daughter of a friend handed
me a black pointy sorcerer’s hat and told me to re´
place my “boring” straw chapeau. I told my cos´
tume reviewer that my straw hat was more appro´
priate for where I was going — to an opera that
tells the story of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juli´
et” through the music of Charles Gounod. She and
her friends gave me a blank spell-like stare in re´
turn.
After reluctantly leaving the Palmer Square
festivities, I took my seat at McCarter’s Berlind
Theater for New Jersey Opera’s superb produc´
tion — where the onstage outfits were noticeably
compatible with the Harry Potter party costumes.
But the costume compatibility did nothing to
bring the two crowds together. I talked to several
theater-goers during the intermissions, and I came
to the conclusion that the McCarter crowd seemed
to be a counter-Harry Potter culture.
When I recounted the happy activities going
on in Palmer Square to a few of the opera-goers, I
got the same blank stare I had received earlier
from the Harry Potter fan. As soon as I started
confiding in people that I was a cultural igno´
ramus because I had read only one Harry Potter
book, I assumed the role of a Harry Potter confes´
sional priest. Several people — all of whom
would qualify as senior citizens — confided that
they, too, had never read Potter. Some bragged
how they never “succumbed” to the “obscene”
marketing pressure to buy one of the books or a
ticket to one of the Potter movies.
||ýPage=010 Column=001 OK,0085.01þ||
I could relate to being part of a ’60s-style re´
bellion against a consumer consumptive fad, but
refusing to read Harry Potter seemed to me to be
an illogical way to be true to one’s roots. Such an
attitude would serve only to create a greater com´
munications gulf between the Harry generation
and the un-Harry generation.
In fact, both literary creations have enormous
intergenerational appeal. After all, the lead char´
acters in “Romeo and Juliet” are about the same
age as the majority of Potter fans.
And my adult friends (as well as many book
reviewers) who have read Harry Potter — without
the urging of a younger generation advocate —
have been amazed by the quality of the prose, the
descriptions, the dramatic tension. And when, lat´
er in the week, I explained to my hat-critic that
“West Side Story” is based on “Romeo and Juli´
et,” she was stunned. She and her friends had seen
a video of “West Side Story” and thought it was
“awesome.”
Princeton, being a progressive arts communi´
ty, should make its mark on the New Jersey cul´
tural scene by getting the Arts Council of Prince´
ton to create a Bridge Festival that features truly
intergenerational arts celebrations and events, not
geared to a particular age group — i.e., no “chil´
dren’s theater” label, just good art.
Such a trend may inspire Princeton Universi´
ty, in the throes of planning an arts complex in the
vicinity of the Princeton train station, to add a
Platform 9-3/4 to the Dinky station.
Now the real question is which sounds more
childish — Dinky or Platform 9-3/4?
A longtime resident of Princeton, Pam Hersh is
vice president for government and community af´
fairs with Princeton HealthCare System and a
former managing editor of The Princeton Packet
||ýPage=010 Column=002 OK,0051.00þ||
|||||ý Underset=-00013þ|||||