Potted Potter

You don’t need to read all 4,100 pages of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series to enjoy Potted Potter, now enjoying a return engagement at the Little Shubert Theatre. This two-man retelling of all seven books from co-writers and performers Daniel Clarkson and Jefferson Turner stands on its own in its zaniness and unbridled lunacy. Unless you’re an angry or humorless person, you really cannot help but laugh at the stupidity of this 70-minute romp.

It’s a purposeful stupidity to be sure, something akin to $500 blue jeans. Potted Potter began as a piece of street theater performed before crowds of Potter fanatics waiting in line to purchase the sixth book, meant to condense the first five into a five-minute show. It has since added the last two books and an hour more of content, but the requisite style for such reduced theater — think The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) — remains, the props are small and the acting is huge.

Turner, who we are told is the resident Potter expert, enters reading one of the books. Clarkson joins him, betraying his ignorance for the books when he reveals the set he procured for the production: a haunted house coffin, a beach scene with “Forbidden Forest” spray-painted over it, and a wardrobe to Narnia. Since Clarkson decided to splurge on a dragon effect for book four rather than hire any other actors, it falls on him to play every character while Turner takes on the role of the boy wizard himself. Clarkson jumps headfirst into his task with ridiculous abandon.

His Voldemort is the devil incarnate, Ron Weasley is a ginger chav, and his Hermione perhaps once held a position on the East German track-and-field team. When not in character, he’s broadly grinning, big blue eyes aglow, occasionally laughing at his own jokes. He mugs for the audience, ad-libbing if something has gone awry with their shoestring budget props, or to poke fun at a member of the audience. Turner is the straight man to Clarkson’s clown. It certainly helps that there is such a height difference between them. They’re like a latter-day Laurel and Hardy, but 100% British.

Unfortunately, I didn’t see a bar open in the lobby of the Little Shubert. Drinking at children’s shows is perhaps seen on this side of the pond as unseemly. That doesn’t mean mom and dad won’t have a good time. Who can resist cracking a smile during an audience-wide Quidditch match?

More importantly, the lucky little children whose parents can afford the $79.99 per ticket are going to have a good time. $39.99 nosebleed seats are also available, but you won’t be invited to play Quidditch. Either way, they’ll likely rave about the show for days afterward.