Giant by Mark Rosenblatt. Directed by Nicholas Hytner. Designed by Bob Crowley. Lighting design by Anna Watson. Sound design by Darron L. West. Voice and dialect coach Andrew Wade. Wigs, hair, and makeup by Luc Verschueren for Campbell Young Associates. Creative consultant Christopher Gattelli.
Cast: John Lithgow, Aya Cash, Elliot Levey, Rachael Stirling, Stella Everett, and David Manis.
Theater: Music Box Theatre
Tickets: Telecharge.com

Aya Cash and John Lithgow Photo by Joan Marcus

The initiating subject matter is an antisemitic rant by the globally popular children's book author Roald Dahl, who set off fireworks in the form of a review he penned for a literary magazine in 1983, when the play takes place. The book in question, "God Cried" by Tony Clifton and Catherine Leroy, deals with the 1982 war between Israel and Lebanon and focuses on the Israeli siege of Beirut and its impact on the civilian population there.

In his review of the book, Dahl wrote of the Israelis that "never before in the history of man has a race of people switched so rapidly from being much-pitied victims to barbarous murderers." Was this a matter of inadvertently poor word choices? Perhaps he could have pulled back from "race of people" and gone with "the government of one country," though, of course, "never before in this history of man" cannot possibly hold up to even the most modest scrutiny.

In any event, such conjecture is based on a wobbly premise, especially since Dahl, a distinguished wordsmith, would have chosen his language with great attention to the potential impact. To further ensure we don't seek to spin Dahl's intent, the playwright demolishes this as indefensible speculation, as an increasingly ugly, impossible-to-misinterpret dam burst of antisemitic remarks spews forth from the character's mouth as the play progresses.

Clearly, with the global rise of antisemitism on the march, Mark Rosenblatt intends to shine a light on this particular individual's outrageous rhetoric. But Rosenblatt is quite a wordsmith himself, and apart from the hot-button subject matter, the real strength of his creation is the portrait he paints of a complicated man wrapped within a thick armor of defensiveness and an overinflated ego, fed with great care by his attentive fiancée and his British publisher. It is this aspect of the play that fascinates, especially in the skilled hands of Lithgow, who excels at displaying Dahl's charm, his defensiveness, and his apparent love of cutthroat debate.

Some people seem to be born to goad. Dahl evidently was one of them, especially when pushed into a corner. Here he is being met with the backlash from his controversial book review, not specifically over the ethics of the matter, but rather over worries by his British and American publishers that negative publicity may impact book sales. There's his extensive backlist to protect (among them "James and the Giant Peach," "Matilda," and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"), but also his about-to-be-published "The Witches." Can he be persuaded to proffer up some sort of apology?

To this end, we've got the gentle persuasion of fiancée Felicity "Liccy" Crosland (Rachael Stirling) and his British publisher and friend Tom Maschler (Elliot Levey), contrasted with the more forceful push by the American representative Jessie Stone (Aya Cash, delivering a powerful performance in her own right, a terrific balance to Lithgow's Dahl). That both Maschler (based on a real person) and Stone (likely a fictional creation) are Jewish become significant elements that feed into Dahl's near paranoiac defensiveness.

The play's strongest moments come during the arguments between Dahl and Stone, who, after a more genteel initial approach, stands toe-to-toe with him, much to the consternation of the others who prefer to ignore his outbursts. That Stone is willing to risk losing Dahl as one of her publisher's primary authors puts her on a par with his own obstinate stance, and gives the play a terrific Act I close.

Frankly, with an added scene or two, the play could end here. Act II is essentially more of the same, with a conclusion that, while apparently based on real-life events, seems dramatically and unnecessarily over the top.

Early in the play, Levey's character describes Dahl as a "human fucking boobytrap." Lithgow then spends the rest of the play proving it. Director Nicholas Hytner has not found a way out of this growing repetitiveness, and the gasp-inducing bit of outrageousness that caps things off doesn't really add to what we have already witnessed for the previous two hours.

P. S. You might want to do a little bit of research to follow up on what is implied will be the outcome of all the hullabaloo. Not to reveal anything specifically, but let's just say that cynics will be unsurprised.