John Lithgow, a two-time Tony Award winner who has appeared on Broadway more than two dozen times since 1973, will return next spring to star in “Giant,” an acclaimed play exploring one of the most problematic aspects of the storied career of the British children’s author Roald Dahl.
The six-character play, set in 1983, depicts a heated conversation about whether the writer should apologize for incendiary comments he had made about Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
The play is based on real events; Dahl’s legacy is complicated by antisemitism that, three decades after he died, prompted his family to issue an apology for his “prejudiced remarks.” (One example: In 1983 Dahl was quoted in an interview as saying of Jews, “Even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.”)
In an interview, Lithgow, who plays Dahl, noted that most of his work on Broadway had involved new plays, and he called this one “the best experience of all” and said of Dahl: “He was such a deeply complex and difficult man — just as difficult as he was charming and witty. Just a fascinating character.”
The play, Lithgow said, “becomes a pitched battle between two very smart people with two completely opposing points of view, and both sides of their argument are brilliantly and very passionately articulated.”
“The problem is one of those two sides is polluted by antisemitism,” he continued.
“Giant,” the first play written by the British stage director Mark Rosenblatt, was developed with its director, Nicholas Hytner, and Lithgow has been attached from the beginning. The actor starred in the two previous runs of the show, last year at Royal Court Theater in London, and then earlier this year in London’s West End. Both productions received strong reviews and sold well; in April, the show won the best new play award, and Lithgow won the best actor prize, at London’s Olivier Awards.
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The post John Lithgow to Tackle Roald Dahl’s Antisemitism in Broadway ‘Giant’ appeared first on New York Times.
