Veteran actor John Lithgow is riveting audiences in the Broadway production of playwright Mark Rosenblatt’s “Giant,” a painful exploration of famed children’s author Roald Dahl’s antisemitism.
The story, based on documents and often quoted verbatim from his writings, unfolds in 1983 in the months before the publication of Dahl’s “The Witches.” Executives at publisher Farrar, Strauss and Giroux try to convince Dahl to apologize for comments he made in a review of a book about the 1982 bombings in Lebanon.
The plot explores interactions between Dahl, a Jewish friend, a Jewish FSG publicist and Dahl’s wife, revealing not only the protagonist’s charisma and wit, but also his painfully anti-Jewish sentiments, for which Dahl’s real- life family apologized in 2020.
“Giant” is nominated for Best Play at this year’s Tony Awards. Lithgow, who’s garnered a Best Actor Tony nomination for the role tells host Robin Young he wanted to play Dahl because of his complexity, including his “witting and unwitting cruelty.” She joined him in New York after a recent performance.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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