Giant (c) Joan Marcus
Broadway: Giant
At the Music Box Theatre
The first thing the audience sees when they walk into the Music Box Theatre for Giant is a broken house, and with all due respect to set designer Bob Crowley, it hits the nail on the design head, but for British playwright Mark Rosenblatt (his first play), it may be too much of an apt metaphor. This is the Gipsy House of Roald Dahl (John Lithgow), and in 1983, he and his fiancée, Liccy (Rachael Stirling), short for Felicity, are renovating it for a fresh start after Dahl’s divorce from actress Patricia Neal. As the play starts, there are construction sounds, and tarp instead of walls, which adds to Dahl’s stress, as he edits his new book, The Witches with his British publisher Tom (Elliot Levey). On top of that, a representative from Farrar Strauss Giroux, Dahl’s American publisher, is set to arrive to discuss the fallout of a book review he wrote where he disparages all Jews for supporting the death and destruction of the 1982 Lebanon War. Both publishing houses want the outspoken author to do an interview where he would apologize for the perceived antisemitic opinions, which they think will affect sales of The Witches. The American arrives (“The eaglet has landed,” Dahl notes) and it’s Jessie Stone (Aya Cash), a young woman who professes her love for Dahl’s book and even has a copy of The Twits for him to sign for her son. Once pleasantries are done with, the real meat of the meeting (and the play) occurs: What to do to smooth over the offensive language in Dahl’s review? Dahl doesn’t see why it’s so imperative, but he does acquiesce for Liccy’s safety as he has received death threats, which is why a policeman is guarding the house. Dahl is rightly suspicious of why Jessie was chosen to represent FSG, and when it’s revealed that she, like Tom, is Jewish, Rosenblatt gets to dig into the knotty geopolitical question of Israel, especially to those people who are watching all of this from outside the Middle East.
Giant (c) Joan Marcus
This feels (I’m sure, not accidentally) analogous to a current brouhaha over a beloved writer (let’s call them Jo), who has written a beloved series of children and young adult books, but whose view of trans people have done irreparable harm to their reputation. Like Dahl, Jo seems to revel in their beliefs, doubling down any time they say anything controversial or prejudicial with no remorse. Dahl, in the play, brings up Hitler. Jo once called International Asexuality Awareness Day, “International Fake Oppression Day.” Both writers are certainly entitled to any opinions they believe, but that they are also writing for children, making their rhetoric even that much more harmful. Jessie even notes that Dahl’s beliefs might be slipping into his books, as the titled characters in his new book, might be seen as antisemitic stereotypes. The play is very good in these crackling scenes of arguments, but Rosenblatt also stuffs it with tangents that dilute the plot, including Tom’s obsession with a tennis game he’s late for and a lie from Jessie exposed late in the play to no emotional effect. But nothing diminishes the master class of acting that Lithgow (who is set to play Professor Dumbledore in the TV adaptation of the Harry Potter books) gives every time he’s on stage, even when Dahl is saying the most vile things in the guise of playing devil’s advocate. And the last scene in the play that hinges on the face of his cook Hallie (Stella Everett) is a brilliantly realized moment as written, as directed (by Nicolas Hytner) and performed by Lithgow and Everett. The other actors (all from the West End production) have moments to shine, but it’s the American actress Cash (most known for the series You’re the Worst), in Jessie’s big moment at the end of Act One, who is the most memorable. The play’s title, which people might confuse with a popular movie starring James Dean, refers to both Dahl’s height (he was 6’6”) and may allude to his fictional character The BFG (Big Friendly Giant), one of the novels that Penguin Books in 2023 controversially decided to revise some problematic texts. And the Dahl quandary continues.
Every Brilliant Thing (c) Matthew Murphy
Broadway: Every Brilliant Thing
At the Hudson Theatre
Audience members will be forgiven if they thought the new play, Every Brilliant Thing, starring Daniel Radcliffe, was about Daniel Radcliffe. Certainly, there is a trend for celebrities to do one-person Broadway shows about their lives (Billy Crystal, Mike Birbiglia, John Leguizamo, Bruce Springsteen), but despite being very Daniel Radcliffe in his portrayal, the actor is playing a fictional character in a play written by Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe. Directed by Macmillan and Jeremy Herrin, it has transferred from London, where the unnamed character was performed by a varied set of actors during its run, with Minnie Driver being the last when it closed in November. For Broadway, it’s only Radcliffe, and after seeing the show, it’s almost unfathomable to think of another actor doing it with such panache and generosity of spirit. As the audience files in, Radcliffe is already running about, talking to audience members (everyone participates in this show in one way or another, unless you don’t want to dance to a Curtis Mayfield song with Radcliffe—what kind of monster are you?). Most of the major participants are in the seats on stage, and most are game to play the many people in our hero’s life, including his father, a veterinarian, a college professor and, at the performance I was at, a rather too-game woman portraying his favorite primary teacher, improvising a lot of her responses for which Radcliffe gamely reacts to but has to steer the scene back to the script (New Yorkers, gotta love them). I think the moment that burst the “this isn’t an autobiographical show” happens when Radcliffe talks about a crush he has on a guy at a library (although a bi Radcliffe is always a possibility). Not sure if Radcliffe always picks a male audience member for this character with the neutral name of Sam, but major points for him for doing so at my performance.
Every Brilliant Thing (c) Matthew Murphy
I don’t want to spoil too much of the play (it does deal with depression, in case that’s a trigger for you), but I will bring up the list that our narrator starts to compile at the age of seven, and that is the titular list, and of course as any seven year old would rank, Number 1 is ”ice cream,” yelled out by an audience member given the task by Radcliffe in the mezzanine. Not to blame the person who yelled out No. 4 (I blame the acoustics of where I was sitting), only afterwards did I find out it was “the color yellow.” Throughout the play, the list grows, even when the things that happen to our guy in real life are not quite as brilliant as #2007: “vinyl records.” Even when his story grows dark, Radcliffe’s innate empathy and likeability shines through, keeping the audience on his side. Normally, I’m not a fan of audience participation (see my review of Burnout Paradise), but the people were well-chosen at my performance (even the talkative teacher), with the guy playing his boyfriend Sam getting rather teary at one moment that surprised everyone including Radcliffe. It’s spontaneous moments like that that the playwrights are banking on, as the play itself, if performed only by the actor, would be rather slight. Radcliffe has boundless energy (I assume there’s Red Bull in his water bottle he occasionally drinks from) and certainly the major reason why Every Brilliant Thing is as brilliant as it is on Broadway. Turns out he is more magical here than he was in the whole of the Harry Potter film series.
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