Next stop Australia: Harry Potter play opens to rave reviews on Broadway

He reserved particular praise for the production's ability to tap into the human condition through the relationships and connections between the characters.

"This slyly manipulative production knows exactly how, and how hard, to push the tenderest spots of most peoples emotional makeups," he wrote.

"By that I mean the ever-fraught relationships between parents and children, connections that persist, often unresolved, beyond death."

Variety's Marilyn Stasio said the show brings enchantment to a world that really could use a little magic right now in her review of the opening night.

"Visually and aurally, the show presents a panorama of dazzling effects that draw audible gasps from the audience," she wrote.

While hardcore Harry Potter fans argue the play should exist outside the traditional Harry Potter canon, despite it being devised by author JK Rowling, Stasio found there was plenty about the show audiences would be familiar with.

"The story is a brand-new one, but there are plenty of familiar pleasures. The talking portraits, for one thing. Theres a wonderful scene in which that long-gone sage, Albus Dumbledore (Edward James Hyland) leans out of his own portrait to speak to Harry. Those alarmingly mobile staircases also play a central role and are even more fun than the ones in the movies, because theres always a chance that someone will go flying around a curve. Best of all, theres a set of bookcases in the Hogwarts library that keep swallowing and spitting out unwary readers," she wrote.

Critics have roundly praised the production itself but several have also given particular praise to the production's renovations of the Lyric Theatre on W 43rd Street in Manhattan.

The foyer of the theatre has been transformed to fit in with Rowling's wizarding world with a fresh paint job and scenic decorations bringing audiences into the experience as soon as they walk through the door.

It is understood a similar renovation will be done to Melbourne's Princess Theatre when the show begins bumping in to that venue later this year.

With the show less than a year out from it's Australian premiere the pre-production process is well under way.

Director John Tiffany and his associates were in Australia in January to find the cast who will play the roles locally. He will return in the coming months to finalise the casting process ahead of announcements towards the middle of the year.

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Nathanael Cooper is Fairfax Media's deputy entertainment editor

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