Having taken the West End by storm, discover how Mark Rosenblatt’s play, starring John Lithgow, has been going down with New York critics.
Theatrely.com: “For all its dramatic pleasures and gestures towards nuance, Giant winds up feeling like the latest example of a type of weaponized censorship that deems any criticism of governments as human-scale hate speech.”
New York Theatre Guide: “Through it all, two-time Tony Award winner Lithgow ascends in a calculated performance. He’s charming, chilling, snarling, and reprehensible until he finally, intentionally, digs himself a into a deeper hole in a phone interview. Reveling in his true self, Lithgow’s Dahl looks like a kid contentedly sucking an Everlasting Gobstopper.”
The Arts Fuse: “The didactic impulse is evident in the writing’s texture, too. The exchanges between Dahl and his guests have a relentless, heavy-handed quality; the play stays in an intense, argumentative register for long stretches without any shifts in rhythm – moments of humor, vulnerability, distraction – that might offer the audience a different way into the material. The result can feel exhausting rather than illuminating.”
Variety: “It’s a credit to the direction of Nicholas Hytner — of “War Horse,” “The History Boys” and other magisterial slices of Brittania — that Lithgow’s titanic performance doesn’t unbalance the show. The actor relishes all aspects of Dahl’s childishness, and the humanity within the beast emerges in small moments.”
Exeunt NYC: “But the genius of Giant is in how Rosenblatt and Lithgow establish Dahl as a charming curmudgeon with a deadly wit. Sure he’s full of landmines, but he’s very funny. Lithgow employs the same kind of natural charisma that made his run as the Trinity Killer on Dexter so terrifying. It’s also there in his portrayal of Lucas Sergeant in All That Jazz. Below the intellectual aesthete is something menacing. Nobody has that quite like Lithgow, which makes this a perfect match of actor and part. “
New York Stage Review: **** “But the quibbles hardly matter considering Lithgow’s towering performance, which blends warmth and ugliness in fascinating fashion. The veteran actor, now 80 years old, has never been better, providing such a compelling central figure that, despite the fine performances by the rest of the ensemble, Giant sometimes has the feel of a one-person play.”
New York Theater.me: ““Giant,” given a first-rate production by Tony winning director Nicholas Hytner (War Horse, The History Boys, Carousel), is, remarkably, Mark Rosenblatt’s playwriting debut, although he has been a director for two decades. He has a great ear for dialogue, and a fine-tuned sense of the complexity of character, which all six actors persuasively portray. “Giant” is too narrowly focused to be a portrait of Dahl, nor deep enough to be an analysis of why somebody is antisemitic (if such an analysis is possible), nor (given Dahl’s bigotry) a fair debate about Israel. But Rosenblatt is a brave and intelligent playwright taking on a subject that no one else seems willing to touch. “
Theatre Mania: “Lithgow plays Dahl like an old-growth college sophomore. Clever and accustomed to being told so, he drives the conversation with impertinent questions and sarcastic asides, rarely allowing his guests to complete a sentence. Lithgow’s physical appearance seems to have transformed in this role, his hunched frame that of a giant on the wane, his face a sour pucker that occasionally twists in sadistic delight, or melts into genuine grief. It’s a performance that never hides what a bastard Dahl could be while also making us feel genuine empathy for an artist whose principled stance against murder has been interpreted as bigotry.”
Deadline: “Rosenblatt presents the issues with expert modulation, only rarely – very rarely – sliding just a bit too close to a schematic one side vs. the other format. Instead, he and director Hytner allow the arguments and contentions to flow from character, sometimes with a brazen articulation, sometimes with a stuttering reluctance, but always a shrewd candor, polite manners be damned.”
To find out more about the production visit: https://gianttheplay.com/