A Terrible Play Based on Last Night's Dream: The Unknown and Unrecorded Lecture on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Characters:
Benjy the Manchild
Matt
Dr. Langager, also referred here as Dr. L
Mariko
Andy
Chorus: consists of all of the MiraCosta College choir
Act I, Scene I
Setting: Dr. Langager’s car driving through La Jolla’s Prospect Street in which Mariko, Matt and Andy are discussing a brief history of San Diego's La Jolla Cove. The choir is caravanning (on their way to a venue at which they will be performing their most popular repertoire) and have pulled off the freeway to do some light shopping and eat.
Dr. Langager (driving through La Jolla): Which author lived in La Jolla when [the city] was first developing?
Matt: Novelist or poet?
Dr. L: Poet.
Benjy: (Moans loudly).
Matt: 20th century?
Dr. L: Mid-twentieth.
Matt: W.H. Auden?
Dr. L: No.
Matt: Stevie Smith?
Dr. L: No.
Matt: Gay or Straight? Man or Woman?
Dr. L: Yes, certainly yes.
Mariko: T.S. Eliot?
Dr. L: (Appearing to be distracted by a busy road). Yes, certainly yes.
Act I, Scene II
In the unknown classroom of the unknown university—Dr. L is lecturing a grad level course on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Benjy the Manchild is moaning and rocking frantically back and forth. He is wearing the bottom half of Darth Vader's black mask.
Dr. L: Referring to section four of your text—the highlighted dialogue in your reference page—we encounter Harry Potter and Hagrid speaking of Voldemort’s recent actions after the shadow of the flying squirrel is cast on Harry’s arm.
Andy K: (taking copious notes) Yes.
Chorus: What is the significance?
Benjy: (Moans loudly).
Dr. L: This variation form discussed on Jan. 3, asserts itself here, in which a “theme is presented in a sequence of analogous but different settings,” to quote Frye, and Potter is no longer a metaphor of false rhetoric. This “world of false rhetoric,” Frye continues, “is a world where the imagination encounters no resistance from anything material, where the loneliness—please refrain from Benjy’s distracting moans—and alienation,” continuing ” of the mind, about which…” in this case, Potter, “speaks so eloquently [of], has consoled itself with pure solipsism.
Matt: A metaphor of false rhetoric?
Chorus: A metaphor of false rhetoric!
Dr. L: Yes.
Andy: Yes, naturally.
Dr. L: We certainly see other examples of this “pure solipsism” throughout the text.
Chorus: Throughout the text! Throughout the text!
Andy: About which?
Dr. L: Yes, about which there can be no further development.
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