Even though it was actually commissioned for the Bridge Theatre – which has been unable to stage it because of the blockbuster success of ‘Guys and Dolls’ – Mark Rosenblatt’s ‘Giant’ looks set to be the defining piece of programming of David Byrne’s Royal Court tenure, or certainly of the first year.
There’s the director, for a start: Bridge and former National Theatre boss Nicholas Hytner seemed to be the antithesis of what the previous Court regime stood for – he’s not boring, but he’s certainly mainstream.
And then there’s the subject: first-time playwright Rosenblatt’s play is about beloved children’s author Roald Dahl’s notorious antisemitism, something most of us are familiar with in the abstract while being vague about the exact details. Not only is it a potentially incendiary subject at a time when Dahl’s back catalogue is being milked on stage and screen like never before, but a play calling out antisemitism feels like a statement intent for Byrne’s time at the Court given the theatre has diced with several antisemitism scandals over the years.
Intriguingly ‘Giant’ has a link back to the biggest of those scandals. It co-stars actor Elliot Levey as Dahl’s horrified Jewish agent; Levey is the son-in-law of Ken Loach, director of the scandalous drama ‘Perdition’ that Court shelved in 1987 in the face of protests that it was antisemitic; in 1999 a young Levey actually staged a scrubbed up version of ‘Perdition’ at the Gate Theatre.
All very fascinating, though for most normal people the appeal will certainly be US actor John Lithgow – ‘Third Rock from the Sun’, ‘The Crown’ – who will star as Dahl, returning to the British stage for the first time since ‘The Magistrate’ at Hytner’s NT back in 2012.
