《哈利·波特與被詛咒的孩子》 魔法還在繼續
LONDON — Oh, for a wizard’s spell that would allow me to tell you everything, and then erase it completely from your memory. But though I paid rapt attention during the afternoon and evening I spent at “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” which opened in a blaze of outrageous enchantment on Monday night at the Palace Theater here, I failed to pick up on any recipe for inducing post-tell-all amnesia in Muggles, which is Potter-speak for nonwizards like you and me.
倫敦――啊，要是有巫師咒語，讓我能把一切都告訴你，然後再把這一切從你記憶中徹底抹去，那該多好。《哈利·波特與被詛咒的孩子》(Harry Potter and the Cursed Child)於星期一晚上，在倫敦的皇宮劇院(Palace Theater)盛大上演。可是，儘管整個下午和整個晚上，我全神貫注，卻還是沒有發現讓麻瓜（波特的世界裏就是這麼稱呼不會魔法的你我）患上“說出一切之後的健忘症”的祕方。
This eagerly anticipated, two-part, five-hour-plus sequel to J. K. Rowling’s best-selling, seven-volume series of “Harry Potter” novels is the kind of play that you want to describe in detail, if only to help you figure out how it achieves what is does. That would be a kind of magic that is purely theatrical yet somehow channels the addictive narrative grip of Ms. Rowling’s prose.
這部備受期待的舞臺劇分爲上下兩部，長達五個多小時，是J·K·羅琳暢銷的七卷本《哈利·波特》小說的續集，你會忍不住想描述它的細節，只爲了弄清它是怎麼這樣成功。這是一種純粹的戲劇性魔法，然而卻傳達出羅琳的文字裏迷人的敘事技巧。
Unfortunately, those who have scored tickets to this two-part production, which is sold out through May, are given buttons as they leave the theater that admonish “#KeepTheSecrets.” And I do not want to antagonize Potter fans, who tend to be as vigilant and vengeful as the army of Death Eaters that polices the evil empire of He Who Must Not Be Named, Lord Voldemort.
不幸的是，這部劇的票在5月就已經銷售一空，而那些得到票的人們在離開劇場時，得到一個小徽章，上面警告“保密”。我不想惹惱波特的粉絲們，他們就像保衛邪惡伏地魔的食死徒軍團一樣充滿警惕和報復心理，
Voldemort is now long gone, of course. Or is he?
當然伏地魔早就已經死了。是吧？
The story of “The Cursed Child” — conceived by Ms. Rowling with its playwright, Jack Thorne, and director, John Tiffany — makes such questions impossible to answer, and I’m not just being coy because of my pledge of silence. This is a work in which the past casts a distressingly substantive shadow. The past, as Faulkner would say, isn’t even past.
《被詛咒的孩子》的故事由羅琳、編劇傑克·索恩(Jack Thorne)和導演約翰·蒂芬尼(John Tiffany)共同編寫，它讓伏地魔這種問題變得沒法回答了，我請求保持沉默，這可不是在扭捏作態。在這部劇裏，往事投下了令人痛苦的巨大陰影。正如福克納(Faulkner)所說，過去並未真正過去。
This point of view saturates “The Cursed Child,” which seems to occur in a land of hypnotically luminous darkness that should mesmerize adults as effectively as children. By even existing, this play is destined to fight against the gravitational force of the memories of young readers. I mean the ones whose coming of age paralleled that of Harry Potter (who advanced from 11 to 17) in the books and the eight blockbuster films they inspired and who may want the Boy Who Lived to stay frozen forever as he was when they last encountered him.
《被詛咒的孩子》之中滲透的就是這個觀點，它的故事似乎發生在一片閃爍着催眠般的光亮的黑暗大陸，對成年人和孩子同樣生效。這部劇的存在本身，就是爲了與年輕讀者回憶的重力相對抗。我是指那些和哈利·波特的小說和八部轟動電影一起成長（從11歲邁進到17歲）的人，他們可能希望這個活下來的男孩永遠凍結在和他們最後一次相遇時的樣子。
As a character in “The Cursed Child” says, “Playing with time — you know we can’t do that.” But playing with time, both gleefully and earnestly, is exactly what this show’s creators are doing. (The production’s memorable images include the most dazzlingly disturbing clocks since the heyday of Salvador Dalí.) Its plot is built on a fantasy that most of us indulge from early childhood: What if we could rewrite our own histories?
正如《被詛咒的孩子》裏的一個角色說的，“和時間嬉戲，你知道我們不可以這麼做。”但是既高興又熱情地和時間嬉戲，正是這部劇的主創們所做的（劇中難忘的圖像中，也包括薩爾瓦多·達利[Salvador Dalí]全盛時期畫下的那些精彩而令人不安的時鐘）。它的情節建立在一個我們大多數人在童年都有過的幻想上：如果我們能重寫自己的歷史會怎樣呢？
That premise has been the basis for works as different as the “Back to the Future” film franchise and Nick Payne’s recent physics-infused boy-meets-girl play, “Constellations.” But the notion is singularly well suited to the purposes of “The Cursed Child,” which unfolds as a sort of multiple-choice narrative, allowing Potter fans to encounter various might-have-been, might-yet-be paths for characters they already know intimately and for the new ones introduced here.
這樣的設定是從《回到未來》(Back to the Future)系列電影到尼克·佩恩(Nick Payne)最近糅合了物理學的戀愛戲《星座》(Constellations)的基礎。但是這個概念也極爲適合《被詛咒的孩子》，它是一種多重選擇敘事，讓波特的粉絲們可以看到他們已經熟悉的角色和劇中的新角色各種走過或者還沒有走過的道路。
And yes, the old gang is back, or at least the members of it who survived Ms. Rowling’s final Potter novel, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” The first scene of the play is identical to the last one in that novel, and uses much of the same dialogue.
是的，老夥計們又回來了，至少是那些活過了《哈利·波特與死亡聖器》(Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)的角色們。該劇的第一幕就是小說的最後一幕，也使用了不少同樣的對話。
Harry (Jamie Parker, who does Potter pain beautifully), now on the edge of middle age and an employee of the Ministry of Magic, and his wife, Ginny (Poppy Miller), are found at King’s Cross railroad station in London, seeing two of their sons — James (Tom Milligan) and Albus (Sam Clemmet) — off to his alma mater, Hogwarts, the academy of magic that provided him with an especially enlightening, if punishing, education. It will be the anxious Albus’s first year, and like his dad, he is a proud, prickly and sensitive plant.
哈利（由傑米·帕克[Jamie Parker]飾演，他很好地呈現了波特的痛苦）如今正值中年，是魔法部的一名工作人員，他和妻子金妮（波比·米勒[Poppy Miller]飾演），在倫敦的國王十字火車站送兒子詹姆斯（湯姆·米利根[James，Tom Milligan]）和阿不思（Albus，山姆·克萊門特[Sam Clemmet]飾），去爲他帶來特別的啓蒙教育，也爲他帶來痛苦的母校霍格沃茨魔法學校上學。這是阿不思第一年上學，和父親一樣，他是個驕傲、麻煩而又敏感的人。
Joining Harry and company are his old chums and allies in the fight against darkness, the goofy Ron Weasley (Paul Thornley, delightful) and the perpetual A-student Hermione Granger (Noma Dumezweni, a black actress whose casting provoked controversy but who is perfect in the part), now married and the parents of a Hogwarts-bound girl, Rose (Cherrelle Skeete). Harry’s former archrival, Draco Malfoy (Alex Price), is there, too, with his son, Scorpius (Anthony Boyle).
哈利的老朋友和對抗黑暗的老戰友們也加入了他們一家，傻乎乎的羅恩·韋斯利（Ron Weasley，保羅·索恩利[Paul Thornley]飾演，很快活）和永遠的優等生赫敏·格蘭傑（Herminone Granger，諾瑪·杜梅茲韋尼[Noma Dumezweni]飾演，她是個黑人演員，入選這一角色時受到不少爭議，不過她完美地勝任了這個角色）結了婚，他們的女兒羅斯（Rose，切萊爾·斯基特[Cherrelle Skeete]飾）也要去霍格沃茨上學。哈利以前的對頭德拉科·馬爾福（Draco Malfoy，阿歷克斯·普萊斯[Alex Price]也在），還帶着兒子斯科皮烏斯（Scorpius，安東尼·博伊爾[Anthony Boyle]飾演）。
Like Albus, Scorpius is a Hogwarts newbie and the two boys seem destined to become best friends, along with an amiable young woman with blue-tipped hair, Delphi Diggory (Esther Smith). It is a triumvirate that will prove dangerous for, well, pretty much the entire world. Fraught, yearning relationships between fathers and their progeny shape both the play’s form and its content.
和阿不思一樣，斯科皮烏斯也是第一年去上霍格沃茨，兩個男孩似乎註定要成爲好朋友，還有一個有着淡藍色頭髮的可愛女孩德爾菲·迪戈裏（Delphi Diggory，伊瑟·史密斯[Esther Smith]飾演）。這是一個後來被證明很可能對整個世界來說都很危險的三人組。父親和子女之間充滿焦慮和渴望的關係既決定了這部劇的形式，也決定了它的內容。
Who is that cursed child, anyway? More than a few of this story’s many, many characters (the adeptly multifarious cast numbers 42) might fit the description. Like the novels that preceded it, “The Cursed Child” is stuffed with arcana-filled plots that defy diagrams and baldly wrought sentimental life lessons, along with anguished dives into the earnest, tortured solipsism of adolescence. By rights, such a combination should try the patience of any grown-up. But like Ms. Rowling’s books, the play vanquishes resistance.
不過，誰是那個受詛咒的孩子呢？劇中衆多人物之中（演員共42名，非常多樣化），有不少都適合這個描述。正如之前的小說一樣，《被詛咒的孩子》中充滿神祕的情節，用示意圖也搞不明白，其中還有傷感的人生教訓，痛苦地深入探討青春期時代充滿熱情和苦惱的自我中心。當然，這樣的組合會考驗所有成年人的耐心。但是正如羅琳的小說一樣，這部劇也能徹底讓人放下防備。
I reread “The Deathly Hallows” on the flight to London from New York, and I was amazed at how naturally what I saw on the stage seemed to flow from the page. Mr. Thorne, Mr. Tiffany and their movement director, Steven Hoggett, and set designer, Christine Jones, collaborated previously on the chilling adolescent vampire play “Let the Right One In,” and they are all expert in mapping the intersection of the uncanny and the everyday.
在紐約到倫敦的飛機上，我重讀了《死亡聖器》，看到舞臺上的人物彷彿是自然而然地從書本中走出來的，真讓我驚喜。索恩和蒂芬尼，以及該劇的動作指導史蒂芬·霍格特(Steven Hoggett)及佈景設計師克里斯汀·瓊斯(Christine Jones)此前曾在一部令人毛骨悚然的青春期吸血鬼舞臺劇《讓正確的人進來》(Let the Right One In)中合作，他們擅長尋找非凡事物與日常生活的交點。
Along with a team that includes Katrina Lindsay (costumes), Neil Austin (lighting) and Imogen Heap (music), Mr. Tiffany and his cast conjure the self-contained world(s) of Ms. Rowling’s books with imagistic wit, precision and, occasionally, stark terror. A convocation of wizards is evoked through the simultaneous swirling of black capes; an otherworldly, xenophobic and unsettlingly topical-feeling Fascist brigade materializes and multiplies out of yawning darkness; and staircases, bookcases and suitcases assume varied and miraculous lives that propel both themes and story.
這個團隊還包括卡特琳娜·林賽（Katrina Lindsay，服裝）、尼爾·奧斯汀（Neil Austin，照明）和易默根·希普（Imogen Heap，音樂），蒂芬尼和劇組成員們以充滿想像力的指揮和精確性營造出了羅琳書中那個世界，偶爾也帶有一絲恐怖。黑色斗篷同時抖動，讓觀衆明白巫師們在開大會；一支來自非現實世界的、陌生恐怖、令人不安、頗具話題感的法西斯軍團神祕現身，成羣結隊走出黑暗深淵；樓梯、書架和衣櫥發生變化，神祕的生物推動着故事主題與情節。
This production captures Ms. Rowling’s sensibility even more persuasively than did the special-effects-driven films. True, the movies were blessed with an unmatchable stable of idiosyncratic British character actors like Alan Rickman and Maggie Smith and, as Voldemort, Ralph Fiennes (now safely ensconced across town at the Almeida Theater, embodying another avatar of evil, Richard III). But in “The Cursed Child,” everyone onstage has direct, present-tense responsibility for the story being told. And most of them play many parts.
這部劇捕捉到了羅琳作品中的情感，甚至比那些充滿特效的電影還要令人信服。誠然，電影有幸邀得那些無與倫比、獨具個性的英國演員們加入，比如艾倫·裏克曼(Alan Rickman)和瑪吉·史密斯(Maggie Smith)，還有飾演伏地魔的拉爾夫·費因斯（Ralph Fiennes，他現在安全地呆在倫敦另一頭的阿爾梅達劇院，飾演另一個邪惡化身，理查三世）。但在《被詛咒的孩子》裏，所有臺上的角色都是置身現場，直接對劇中的故事負責。他們當中大多數人還身兼多角。
That includes the show’s principals, though I won’t reveal how and why they do so. Suffice it to say that these transformations become haunting, funny physical reflections of our desire to connect with the people we only think we know well, with the dead who linger in our lives and with the selves we once were and will be.
這其中也包括這部戲的主角們，儘管我不能透露他們爲什麼要這樣做，以及是怎麼做到的。我只能說，我們渴望與那些我們本來很瞭解的人，以及那些生命中重要的逝者，還有我們自身的過去與未來發生聯繫，這些角色的變形就是這種渴望的體現，既有趣又飄忽。
The word for these imaginative leaps of faith is empathy. That’s the magic practiced so affectingly and entertainingly in “The Cursed Child,” and it turns everyone in the audience into a sorcerer’s apprentice.
對於這種充滿想像的信仰飛躍，關鍵詞就是共情心。這就是《被詛咒的孩子》裏感人而又有趣的魔法，它能讓所有觀衆都變成魔法師的學徒。
