The Istoriaphile’s Corner

In my first iteration as a college student, I had trouble choosing between English and Theatre as a major.  (We theatre geeks spell the subject with the British “re” instead of “er”.  It shows our snobbish devotion to British plays.) During every semester, almost every week, I’d wrestle with the issue: was my primary devotion to the stage or to books?  It turns out I lack the temperament necessary for a theatrical life.  I like regular hours, daylight, and sleeping at home instead of a green room.  What I do like is reading plays. In their dormant form, plays look the like every other book; reading them takes a slightly different set of skills.  With the publication of  Rowling/Tiffany/Thorne play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, those differences have become apparent to a wider audience. Just remember, novels and plays are different ways of seeing a story. In a novel, the author controls the story world and lyrically shows the reader what he/she needs to see. The description may be confined to a few, sparse details (like Hemmingway’s) or may roll into long, lush paragraphs. These parts are where the narrator’s voice soars before dropping back to the dialogue of the…