NEW YORK (AP) — John Lithgow is returning to Broadway in a play which may change the best way we learn bedtime tales to our youngsters.
The 2-time Tony Award-winner will star as Roald Dahl in “Giant,” which explores accusations of antisemitism in opposition to the beloved author of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” Matilda” and “James and the Giant Peach.”
“You go back and read his writing after seeing the play and you see dark strains in it, which you knew were there,” says Lithgow. “But you suddenly see it in a different light when you see this play.”
“Giant,” by director-turned-playwright Mark Rosenblatt, gained the Olivier Award earlier this yr for finest new play in London and earned Lithgow his first Olivier. Performances start in New York on March 11.
Set over a single afternoon on the Dahl household house in the summertime of 1983, “Giant” presents the writer on the eve of publication of his guide “The Witches.”
He’s going through outcry after making antisemitic feedback and Dahl is being pressured to decide on between making a public apology or risking his title and repute. Jewish representatives from Dahl’s British and American publishers go to his house to chart a course.
“He was a loved writer for very good reasons, and it was really only after his death that so much of this information about his antisemitisms came into focus. He was sort of spared the era of cancel culture,” says Lithgow.
The play will arrive in New York amid swirling accusations of antisemitism over the struggle in Gaza, a debate over cancel tradition and questions concerning the place of politics in youngsters’s literature.
“It’s not a play that wants to tell people what to think. It just invites people to think,” says Rosenblatt, who was impressed to put in writing “Giant” after studying of antisemitism in Britain’s Labor Celebration.
“It’s a play about a complex person, a complex human being who created some of the great treasures of my childhood and whose work I still read to my own kids,” says Rosenblatt. “I guess it’s asking people in some ways to hold two truths in their heads at the same time.”
The play premiered on the Royal Courtroom Theatre earlier than transferring to the West Finish. It’s directed by Nicholas Hytner and options set designs by Bob Crowley
Selection referred to as it “a powerhouse play whose time has most definitely come.” The Instances was equally enthusiastic: “Are we likely to see a more enthralling play in the West End this year? I very much doubt it. In fact, we’ll be lucky to encounter a more thought-provoking piece in the next decade.”
Lithgow — who is also a youngsters’s guide writer and writes songs for youths — is deep into youngsters’s literature today. Along with “Giant,” he is additionally signed on to play Albus Dumbledore in HBO’s “Harry Potter” TV sequence.
“It’s kind of extraordinary that I’ve ended up playing these two characters at such a moment concurrently,” he says. “So here I am doing a variation on a theme.”
