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Welcome to this review recap episode of Broadway Radio. My name is Matt Tamnini. I am here today to run you through all of the reviews from the Broadway premiere of the new play Giant by Mark Rosenblatt, directed by Nicholas Heitner, that opened up at the Music Box theater on Monday, March 23. Unfortunately, the embargo for reviews was not up until 11pm making it impossible for me to stay up late enough to read them, let alone podcast about them. But I am here with everything that you need to know about what certainly feels like it will be a contender, not a frontrunner, for the Tony Award for Best Play this year, Giant focuses on a world famous children's author under threat. It is a battle of wits in the wake of a scandal and one chance to make amends. Giant tells the story of Roald Dahl, of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda James and the Giant Peach, Big Friendly Giant, et al fame and the true scandal that shook his legacy. The play stars Tony and Olivier Award winner John Lithgow as Roald Dahl, Rachel Sterling as Lissy, his fiance Elliot Levy as his friend and publisher Tom and Ayakash as somewhat of a crisis PR marketing exec from his American publisher. After reviewing a book about the Israeli army's bombing of Lebanon, Dahl publishes outrageously and violently anti Semitic comments leading to concern from all corners of his life. As of recording time, review aggregator site Did They like it? Has collected 14 reviews, 11 were positive, two were mixed and one was negative. This show has already won three Olivier Awards over in London, and as I said, I think this one will be a fairly major contender for a lot of the play awards, especially Best Play and for Lithgow as its lead. Let's start with Helen Shaw, writing for the New York Times. She was not only positive, but she did make the show a critics pick, writing in part on its surface, Giant looks like an acerbic drawing room comedy, but its undercarriage is an Ibsen play, a talky oppositional drama though it has only one three dimensional combatant. She continues, Lithgow's Doll is the sole repository of Rosenblatt's perception, which is shifting and multivalent and even in moments of extremity, sympathetic. He weaves in insight after insight. He hints at the way adolescent misogyny might have shaped Doll's nastiness, in the way that our deference to the elderly, to the famous, even to the loved, can accelerate their radicalization. Audience members should therefore attend with their mental cudgels poised, prepared to be the opposition that Dahl doesn't really encounter on stage. I found Lithgow's performance a fascinating study in monstrosity, but I found myself more engaged by the conversations I've had since seeing Giant. They are the necessary third act to this two act play. The implication in Giant is that Dahl, unchecked by those closest to him, oversteps. And when a giant oversteps, he crushes lives. In moments of narcissistic preening, he says things that he thinks are clever but that are in fact beyond the pale. He appears to be making reasoned arguments, but his status in much catered to prickliness means that he never hears the other side. The moment he states an actual position, we can perceive how poisoned and contradictory his thinking is. Also positive was Sara Holdren of Vulture, saying Lithgow so nimble and charismatic and then suddenly so imposing with no aversion to the grotesque, knows how to bring out the insecurity that almost always festers at the center of any performatively self certain action. His doll is constantly goading people, driving them right up to the edge of their tolerance. Daniel d' Addario for Variety was also positive, saying it's a critic to the direction of Nicholas Heitner that Lithgow's Titanic performance doesn't unbalance the show. The actor relishes all aspects of Dahl's childishness and the humanity within the beast emerges in small moments. Adam Feldman of Timeout New York was positive, giving the show four out of five stars, saying Lithgow's portrayal of Dahl is ultimately fearsome, but the play's moral complexity marks it as more than a portrait of the artist as a difficult man. It's a provocative study in the ongoing challenge of asking giants to watch their step. One of the mixed reviews comes from Juan A. Ramirez of Theaterly, who said Giant is brilliantly structured, quite funny and in Nicholas Hytner's production, superbly acted by a cast led by John Lithgow. I wish it didn't irk me the way it did. For all its dramatic pleasures and gestures towards nuance, Giant winds up feeling like the latest example of a type of weaponized censorship that deems any criticism of governments as human scale hate speech. The one negative review, perhaps unsurprisingly, goes to Robert Hoefler of the Wrap, who said Rosenblatt is too good at his job. He's only about 20 minutes into his play and he already delivers a great ending. Unfortunately, there is no place for the drama to go for the next two hours. Let's wrap up with one more positive review this one comes from Greg Evans of Deadline, who says Lithgow's remarkable Olivier Award winning performance at this point in the far from over Broadway season, he and every brilliant things Daniel Radcliffe seem headed for a showdown is a terrifically nuanced affair, as indeed are Rosenblatt's play and the note perfect direction of Nicholas Heitner. Any cast of co stars would be deemed successful merely for holding its own, and this one does so much more than that. Giant, thrilling and abrasive, is full of rewards. If you would like to read the full reviews of all of the ones that I sampled or others that I did not get to, I will have the link to the Did They Like It? Roundup in the show notes. As I said, Giant is currently playing at the Music Box Theater and is currently on sale through June 28th. Alright, that's all that I have for you today. On Wednesday I will have our weekly grosses and news recap episode for you and then on Thursday I will have a much delayed February episode of Some Like It Pop. So you are getting a full week of content here on Broadway Radio. Thank you always for supporting us. And if you want more Broadway Radio, head over to patreon.com broadwayradio thanks again for listening. This has been Matt Tammanini and I'll talk to you soon.