GIANT Reviews

Embargo is 10pm est per Adam Feldman

4/5 from Adam Feldman at Time Out

DTLI Consensus: John Lithgow gives a towering, monstrous lead performance in this timely debut play by Mark Rosenblatt.

11 positive (including the NYT), 2 mixed, 1 negative. 

https://didtheylikeit.com/shows/giant-2/

Updated On: 3/24/26 at 12:08 AM

1 Minute Critic - 4/5 stars

The man who wrote Matilda called Jewish people "barbarous murderers." John Lithgow plays him on Broadway and somehow makes it even more complicated. Is it a giant question worth asking? We think so. Full review here. 

I have to agree. I thought it superbly acted but ultimately thought "there's no there there" and just found it as tedious as a scroll on instagram these days.

Had to sit on this for a bit, and even checked out the script from the library afterwards to give it a re-read, but I actually liked this quite a lot.

Probably the biggest surprise is that it seems to posit that Dahl wasn't so much a pure-blooded antisemite as he was an insecure, paranoid bully desperate to use any tools he could get his hands on to force the people around him to prove their devotion to him. The ending, in particular, grabbed me, not because of the nasty and apparently verbatim language he used, but because he's overtly doing it as a way to challenge his wife. "Would you still love me if I stabbed you?", basically, and we know that she would, because we know that she married him. It's an ending straight out of one of Dahl's own stories.

Lithgow does give a terrific performance that really elevates the text and I was extremely entertained watching him constantly ferreting out and exploiting weaknesses. This is essentially a play about a group of people cornering a rat, which is an odd dynamic and I can understand why some would find it repetitive or static. Certainly, it absolutely does not (in its present state) necessitate two whole acts, and would probably work better as an 80-minute one-act. People keep being shuffled in and out of the room, and the use of the two servant characters felt particularly uninspired.

The process by which provocateurs become lonely, hateful monsters (often seeming to beg for external judgement) is fascinating to me, though, so I think I was primed to enjoy this. I was also intrigued by the differences in viewpoint between the American and British Jewish characters. When Jessie asks Tom where he would go if Jews were banned from England, he blithely replies, "Provence", which feels like a pointed criticism of the way that Americans isolate themselves, and how it leads to a hysterical and apocalyptic mindset. There's an intriguing subject to be explored there.

Charley Kringas Inc said: "When Jessie asks Tom where he would go if Jews were banned from England, he blithely replies, "Provence", which feels like a pointed criticism of the way that Americans isolate themselves, and how itleads to a hysterical and apocalyptic mindset. There's an intriguing subject to be explored there."

Tom is rather posh but it’s also a running gag Rosenblatt uses to deflate Dahl’s and others’ idea of Jewish stereotypes. When Dahl makes a reference to Golders Green as the place where the London Jewish community lives, Tom corrects him by relocating the reference to the very wealthy neighborhood of Kensington. 

I read the play as well and I agree it’s good.

Updated On: 5/10/26 at 02:17 PM

I too found Lithgow's performance to be quite extraordinary and found the play reasonably successful in its text despite all of the criticisms that I have heard here....many of which I agree with. But what really drove me crazy was the set! What really was the justification for setting the play in a home that was under such renovation that it appeared uninhabitable! It was not only needlessly unattractive to look at but seemed illogical as a habitable home. I kept wondering as I watched that ugly tarp extending the whole width of the living room how in the heck is this place even standing! It takes place in the english countryside and just as easily as the cast moved in and out between the interior and exterior so would all manner of creatures great and small sharing their home. It drove me crazy and I wish someone could explain what was the value in this set choice that made no architectural or habitable sense to me. Ahhhhh. I'm glad that I got that off my chest after weeks of rumination:) 

Ptero2 said: "Dahl burrowing in, lashing out, and doubling down when challenged really strikes me as similar to modern writers like JK Rowling and Graham Linehan, who have devolved from creatives into full-time hatemongers addicted to social media. Roald Dahl would probably have tens of thousands of tweets arguing with random people on the internet if he were alive today.

It's somewhat unfortunate that this play really has nothing interesting to say about Israel/Palestine. It's not the point, but it's such a hot button issue that it feels weird to have it as a prop to get to a character study on this fascinatingly flawed person. Not sure how they could have averted this though, given the real facts of Dahl's life."

I strongly agree with your first point and respectfully disagree with the second one. While Dahl can be written off as a hateful antisemite or a nasty provocateur, his critiques of Israel and of Jews in general cannot be dismissed so easily, especially as Israel is bombing Lebanon right now. While Dahl’s criticisms and remarks about Jews stem in part from a different time, those criticisms have come around again. We see, hear and read them all the time, from left and right, and they have had a dramatic impact on Jews in America. It is especially true of liberal Jews. The play may be set in the early 1980s, but the explosive audience reaction to Jessie’s monologue that closes the first act resonates with many because it reflects their emotions today.

The play does meander a bit in the second act, and that is a weakness. But Lithgow, as Dahl, probing and snapping at his guests - then doubling down with a ‘naughty boy’ expression of his face at the end - elevates the material in a remarkable way.

This was filmed in London and will be released into theatres later this year