General advice is to stay away from hornets’ nests, especially if you are the West End and you want people to have a nice time and pay lots of money for a ticket. Mark Rosenblatt’s debut play goes against general advice. In fact he finds the biggest hornets’ nests he can and prods at all of them, and sees what comes flying out. What does come out is pretty spectacular.
Despite recently winning what seemed like every single award that had ever been invented, and turning round the faltering fortunes of the Royal Court Theatre, there was never a guarantee that his play about (‘about’ seems like a fairly inadequate word) Roald Dahl’s antisemitism – and the deep trenches of dispute about Israel – would work in the West End. At the Royal Court you expect that kind of politics. The West End is for musicals and celebrities.
But it does work, just as brilliantly. First off there’s John Lithgow (also all the awards) stooping and scowling his way into Dahl, charming in his grandpa-ish grumping at the beginning. He’s a walking metaphor: a giant – of literature, of stature – and big. But friendly? If you knew nothing about him except the good stuff – Charlie, Matilda, Mr Fox – you’d be charmed by his strong will, his passion and compassion. It’s 1983, he’s got a bad back, his house is being noisily renovated, he’s recently got engaged, and has a new book coming out so no wonder he’s grumpy. When his publisher suggests he moves temporarily to a nearby cottage, his crabby reply is, ‘I don’t fit in cottages.’
He’s also just written a very antisemitic review of a book about Israel’s bombing of Lebanon, and his publishers are worried about the backlash, so British publisher Tom Maschler (real - a very strong Elliot Levey) and emissary of American publisher Jessie Stone (made up, Aya Cash) are sent to Dahl to eke out an apology.
Cash is the only new cast member here, replacing Olivier-nominated Romola Garai as Stone. She’s just as good, in a very different way: more confident, more assertive, until she’s slowly backed into a corner by Dahl’s browbeating. Director Nicholas Hytner has her almost literally pushed back against the wall of the set, angry and terrified.
Yes it’s lots of people arguing in a drawing room and god knows the West End has had its fun with plays like those. But something sets it apart, which is Rosenblatt’s willingness to go there. ‘Are you Jewish?’ Dahl asks Stone barely a minute after they meet. From there it’s fireworks, it’s daggers drawn, Dahl a big complex beast either made bearlike by deep compassion for oppressed, injusticed people, or a big child who doesn’t know how to regulate his feelings, so instead throws antisemitic tantrums. And actually the familiarity of the old-fashioned form then butts up against its daring intent, like the play is waiting for the tension and conflict that ripples throughout the audience as some of the lines are spat out, the seizing of shock, the awkwardness, outrage and discomfort.
Israel, Palestine. Author censorship. Art and artist. Publishers dealing with authors who keep saying nasty things. It’s all there. The overwhelming feeling – even if it slumps its shoulders for just a moment towards the end of the second act – that adults are in the room. This isn’t the spider pencil world of Quentin Blake illustrations. The nastiness is real. Rosenblatt uses the great giant of children’s books and makes a very grown up play. Aided by Hytner’s crystalline production, where humour is never many lines away, he demands that these arguments play out, stink and vitriol and all, I guess in the hope that we can stop arguing them on repeat for the next forty years.
