‘Giant’ Broadway Review: John Lithgow Devours Roald Dahl for Breakfast

In 1939, George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s comedy “The Man Who Came to Dinner” opened on Broadway at the Music Box, with Monty Woolley creating the role of the nasty, acerbic and very funny writer Sheridan Whiteside. The play closed in 1941 when the film version opened, again starring Wooley, with Bette Davis now on board to play the titular character’s much put-upon but very loyal secretary.

Woolley’s Whiteside has returned to the Music Box in the equally nasty, acerbic and very funny writer Roald Dahl, as performed by John Lithgow in Mark Rosenblatt’s new play, “Giant,” which opened Monday after a run on the West End. 

Unlike “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” Rosenblatt’s play is not a screwball comedy but, at its best, it is very funny, especially when Lithgow lets go with a Whiteside-zinger that lands with drone precision on its quickly decimated target. Roald Dahl, besides writing great children’s books that have sold over 300 million copies worldwide, was also a nasty and very acerbic antisemite, and “Giant” catches him in 1983, a year after Israel attacked Lebanon and right before the publication of Dahl’s “The Witches.”

What has complicated that publication, especially in the United States, is Dahl’s review of Tony Clifton’s photo book “God Cried,” about the siege of West Beirut by the Israeli army during the 1982 Lebanon War. Literary Review published Dahl’s rave critique, which opined that Jews had never “switched so rapidly from much-pitied victims to barbarous murderers.”

To perform damage control, Dahl’s book publisher sends its director of sales to England to convince Dahl to write an apology regarding his criticism of Israel.

Dahl isn’t having it.

In “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” Sheridan Whiteside terrorizes an entire family, and many of their neighbors, whose house he has appropriated for himself. In “Giant,” it is Dahl’s longtime family home that has been invaded by a pesky American and totally incompetent sales director, Jessie Stone (Aya Cash), from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

The secretary played by Bette Davis in the “Dinner” movie has been expanded to four characters in “Giant”: a loyal but put-upon cook (Stella Everett), a loyal but put-upon gardener (David Manis), Dahl’s loyal but put-upon British publisher, Tom (Elliot Levey), and Dahl’s loyal but put-upon fiancée, Felicity (Rachael Stirling), with whom the writer carried on a long extramarital affair before finally divorcing his first wife, the Oscar-winning Patricia Neal (“Hud”).

Only the gardener appears to have ever met Dahl before “Giant” begins. Bette Davis in “Dinner” delivers her only faceless performance. She knew that to create a character who could deal with a nutcase-boss she needed to ignore the tantrums, brush off the arrogance, be almost invisible. Davis should have given acting lessons to Levey and Stirling who react in outrage and horror to every mal mot delivered by Lithgow.

Some of this miscalculation can be blamed on Nicholas Hytner’s direction. People who have lived for a long time in the orbit of a bright egomaniac like Dahl know they cannot enter that glaring light without being incinerated. Rosenblatt has written one humdinger of a star turn for Lithgow. Unfortunately, Rosenblatt has also given every other character very long speeches that give the supporting actors the opportunity to over-emote in defiance of Dahl’s far wittier attacks. Hytner gives Levey and Stirling way too much space to compete with the one and only star.

Lithgow is very good at keeping us on Dahl’s side despite some clearly antisemitic howlers. He’s a man of principles, whether you agree with those principles or not. Of course, Rosenblatt’s timing could not be better, thanks to Israel’s much more recent bombings of Palestine, Iran and, again, Lebanon. In comparison, Israel’s 1982 war with Lebanon looks like a mere “excursion,” to borrow an expression. Ultimately, Rosenblatt pulls the fake moral righteous out from under Dahl to expose him for what he is: a hardened bigot. It’s not just Israel that Dahl hates.

What Rosenblatt does not do is implicate everyone from the gardener to the fiancée in that prejudice. They are his enablers, after all. The cook leaves in a huff, as if she’s never heard Dahl spew his venom before. That goes double for the publisher and the fiancée, who has only been sharing Dahl’s bed for over a decade. Did Felicity wear earplugs while making love with the guy?

To get his play going, Rosenblatt turns Jessica Stone – Dahl translates her name to “stein” complete with a German accent – into an incompetent. She’s there to get Farrar, Straus’ new author, to apologize publicly. Her son is a fan of “The Twits,” and she brings a copy for the author to sign. Oops! When Dahl opens the book, that offending review of “God Cried” slips out and Dahl reads Mrs. Stone’s crib notes that expose her real thoughts about him. Cheap, but that’s how you get a play going fast.

Rosenblatt doesn’t leave it there. A few minutes later, after Stone has apologized profusely for keeping that review, filled with her handwritten notes, she lets go with an offending review of her own: She reveals that  Dahl’s “The Witches” — the book she is there to promote and save from bookstore bans — is actually an allegory that falsely equates Jews to money-grubbing, child-eating sorceresses.

Rosenblatt is too good at his job. He’s only about 20 minutes into his play and he already delivers a great ending. Unfortunately, there’s no place for the drama to go for the next two hours. It’s clear that Dahl isn’t budging because he’s wealthy, old and not in good health. The lure of a possible knighthood lingers, however. To deliver a shocking conclusion to his play, Rosenblatt strongly suggests that Dahl might write an apology. Fact check: Dahl never did.

The Farrar, Straus sales director hangs around for Act 2. She repeatedly exits and enters the Dahl estate (sets and costumes by Bob Crowley) for no reason except, maybe, to delay her being fired at the publishing house.

How does antisemitism, or any kind of bigotry, coexist with such genius? Richard Wagner and George Bernard Shaw are other antisemites whose operas and plays continue to dazzle. Outside the world of art, the recently uncovered sexism of Cesar Chavez boggles the imagination in light of this great activist’s work for farm workers and social justice in general.

“Giant” does nothing to answer such questions, or even raise them.

Lithgow manages to keep our interest. He only stumbles occasionally — when his Dahl grows excessively weepy regarding his dead children. The creep has a heart after all. Fortunately, Lithgow gets back to being a very funny and clever bigot after each of these lapses. He’s admirable in his ability to X-ray a person’s psyche and cut out any tumor to eat for breakfast. Lithgow delivers a real feast for theatergoers.

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