John Lithgow Stars as Roald Dahl in Broadway's Giant
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- Giant, written by Mark Rosenblatt and directed by Nicholas Hytner, opens on Broadway at the Music Box Theater with John Lithgow as Roald Dahl in a performance that previously won an Olivier Award
- The play dramatizes a 1983 book review Dahl wrote in which he claimed the U.S. is "utterly dominated by the great Jewish financial institutions" and asked whether Israel, like Nazi Germany, must "be brought to her knees" after its 1982 invasion of Lebanon
- Aya Cash plays Jessie Stone, a young Jewish publishing executive sent from New York to convince Dahl to apologize; she ultimately calls him "a broken boy in giant's clothing" who picks the legs off ants and sets them afire
- Lithgow's Broadway run puts him on a potential Tony collision course with Daniel Radcliffe, currently starring in "Every Brilliant Thing," according to the reviewer
- The supporting cast includes Rachael Stirling as Dahl's longtime fiancée Felicity "Liccy" Crosland and Elliott Levey as his Jewish publisher Tom Maschler, whose divided loyalties drive much of the drama
- Running time is 2 hours 20 minutes, and the production reframes the historical incident through what the reviewer calls "political correctness and cancel culture" — concluding it "could have been yesterday"
Why it matters: By staging Roald Dahl's real 1983 antisemitic broadside as a present-day reckoning, "Giant" turns the beloved children's author into a defendant before a contemporary audience. Lithgow's towering performance also makes him a likely Tony frontrunner in a Broadway season that includes Daniel Radcliffe, setting up a high-profile showdown at the Music Box Theater.
