Review: GIANT, Royal Court

An irritating moment on the popular BBC2 quiz show last year Only Connect. The show’s host, Victoria Coren-Mitchell, took a moment from self-deprecating remarks about her drinking and gently mocking nerdier people to call Roald Dahl an anti-Semite. A national treasure accused of a hate crime by a future national treasure in a pre-recorded parlor game that lawyers had to see? And then a few memories came back – the shed, flying during the war, and yes, there was something else there, right?

Some scandals stick, some don’t, and there are many reasons for this, some intentionally, some by default, but it’s good to be reminded of the darker corners of some artists’ souls. Regardless of whether anyone does anything with such information – say, avert your eyes from the Caravaggio and Modigliani in the galleries, burn your Neil Gaiman books or throw away your Godfather DVD set in a recycling box – that’s your call… if the Right and Left cancelers didn’t get there first.

We don’t need any provisional contextualization of Dahl’s anti-Semitism, no sensitive parsing of the terms Zionist, Israeli and Jew, no quasi-medical equilibration of mental health issues – it just is, googleable, unashamed, shameful. This is also present in famous stories, but you have to search and there is much more about it. And don’t forget that children, having spent equal amounts of time in happy, unhappy and divided families, understand quite well the complex interactions of good and evil within individuals and groups.

New play by Mark Rosenblatt, Gianthis first after a long career as a director, he takes us back to the source material, with Dahl reinforcing his anti-Semitism in writing and conversation. It starts ugly and stays ugly – a tonal issue that the play, even under Nicholas Hytner’s direction, never resolves, hobbling its dramatic potential.

It’s the summer of 1983, Dahl is over sixty, recently divorced, suffering from back pain, sitting in one room in a house that’s being renovated and worrying about the launch of his new book, Witches. He is spoiled by his fiancée Liccy, served by his maid Hallie and ingratiated with his publisher Tom. His ego sits atop this metaphorical throne and radiates entitlement. Naturally, the only person he really likes for himself is his gardener, Wally, who has known him for decades and whose muddy shoes complement his employer’s clay feet.

Until a guest, Jessie Stone, arrives from New York to ask, even demand, his American publishers, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, to apologize for a virulently anti-Semitic book review he had recently written for The Times. Literary Review. Of course he won’t, citing the book’s subject – the 1982 Lebanon War – as justification for his anger and self-blame, and the situation just keeps getting worse.

This is, of course, an imaginary meeting, but the foundation of the show – Dahl’s shocking words – is drawn directly from the sources. This begs the question why so little of the plot is true. Would an FSG representative, whose contract with a superstar was at stake, be so ill-prepared for a man who has never hidden his (let’s be generous) explosive personality? Would his longtime friend and British publisher be so unable to intervene effectively if things got out of hand? Would a maid really storm out after overhearing an opinion about a self-sabotaging phone call she had surely heard before? The reality sniff test failed for me.

It’s not the actors’ fault, they do the best they can with this flawed set design. John Lithgow has Dahl’s looks and witty charm, especially in the first half where his more outrageous statements seem rude rather than nasty. It is not easy to suggest vulnerability under the armor of such an unattractive personality, but he succeeds, showing the writer’s genuine concern for the fate of the victims of the 1982 invasion. Lithgow also finds the glow of a true believer within himself as darkness descends after the interval.

Romola Garai, although Ms. Stone doesn’t often run away in tears, reliably sticks to her position as a kind of emissary of a less tolerant approach to causing crime in 2024. She has more to bite than Rachael Stirling’d Liccy, who unsuccessfully tries to control Dahl like substitute teacher for an unruly student. Elliot Levey gets laughs as Tom Maschler, but I just didn’t buy his agreement to play Dahl’s punching bag – it didn’t fit the urban, pragmatist who had been coping with life for so long.

Therefore, it is a flawed play, but at least it tries to raise sensitive, key issues of contemporary times in politics and art. Will he – as befits the best theater – change his mind, and if it’s too much, will he at least challenge his attitude? This question is subjective and posed in the eyes of the viewer, but I doubt that anyone watching this play will turn on the radio the next morning to hear about more carnage in Gaza or southern Lebanon and form a new understanding of its origins and potential consequences. I also don’t think anyone will see Matilda, Charlie or James any differently, or even the infamous Maleficents.

Perhaps a parent or two could satisfy the Dahl craving that many children feel with some of Charles M. “Sparky” Schulz’s books Peanuts cartoons. And that would be good.

Photo: Manuel Harlan

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