Performances are stellar in the shockingly relevant Giant at the Royal Court
“It’s complicated”
There’s a boldness to Mark Rosenblatt’s play, a stridency to the way it tackles its subject matter which couldn’t be more of a hot button topic right now if it tried. Giant is set in the Buckinghamshire home of Roald Dahl in 1983 – his home is being renovated as is his marital status with a divorce finalised and a wedding to his long-term lover in the offing, and Israel has invaded Lebanon. Dahl has just written a book review full of antisemitic commentary and so his British and American publishers have come to visit to manage the situation.
It’s a debut play from Rosenblatt, though with more than two decades’ experience as a director, he’s hardly a debutant. And with no less than Nicholas Hytner on directorial duties, a stonkingly good cast has been assembled for one of David Byrne’s opening salvos as the Royal Court’s new AD. Given the Court’s own brushes with antisemitism controversies, you really do feel the lack of fear in wrestling with the institutional past to hopefully forge a better future. On this evidence, signs are definitely positive.
Giant doesn’t have to take a position on whether Dahl was antisemitic since he told the world that he was in a interview with the New Statesman that we see here. Rosenblatt is more interested in delving into the complexity of the character around that position. John Lithgow is excellent at showing us the cosseted ego of an author riding high, performative in the presence of both friends and visitors, though his charm begins to curdle as he refuses to back down, his attacks refocused onto those around him, as it turns out both his publishers are Jewish themselves.
Romola Garai’s American Jessie Stone, somehow simultaneously brittle and resolute, is beautifully astute. Reeling from increasingly vicious attacks, she is still able to mount a defence for her people. Elliot Levey as British publisher Tom Maschler has a more complex time of it, a Holocaust survivor who willingly protects Dahl despite all, clearly having made his own internal bargain to reconcile the man and his bigotry. The notion of protecting great artists no matter what, something emphasised by Rachael Stirling’s work as fiancée Felicity, is also fascinatingly explored, Jessie even saying that she still likes Dahl’s books.
In its real-time structure and traditional presentation, Bob Crowley’s efficient design does what it needs to, there’s something of an old-fashioned feel to Giant which feels magisterial in the first half. Post-interval though, there’s a sense that the writing has plateaued somewhat as it doesn’t quite grip in the same way having already laid out its key thesis. Still, it’s a corker of a new play and pertinent in so many ways.
