Giant
Last night Cathe and I saw Giant at the music box theater on Broadway with our friends Ann Graham and Rick Kamber. The play reminded of the excellent book by Robert McKee, Story, which stated that great characters must be empathetic, not necessarily sympathetic. Roald Dahl, the main subject of the play, was a n exceptional writer, but had many failings. Through the alchemy of extraordinary acting, John Lackow was able to make Dahl into an empathetic character, but never sympathetic. Roahl Dahl was a racist, petty, small minded, and overall a sh*t human being. With a character like that, it is nearly miraculous that Lithgow could make us understand him, if not like him.
I was fascinated by the fact that this play violated the most basic tenant of storytelling, with great success!! In traditional stories, the character starts out one way and over the course of the story changes. This play does not follow the Joseph Campbell heroes journey. Roald starts out as a terrible human being, and ends up, if anything, as an even more terrible human being. He lies to those closest to him in the final moments of the play.
The cast is uniformly wonderful,, but I want to single out two performers, Aya Cash as the representative of Dahl’s American publisher, and Rachael Stirling, as Dahl’s fiancée. Both Ms. Cash and Ms. Sterling have long monologues that they manage to keep dramatically interesting. But this is Lithgow’s show. How he manages to turn a thoroughly unlikeable character into someone you empathize with and care about is the mystery of great acting. Lithgow should prepare his Tony speech for this year—he is a shoo-in for best actor.
I have seen a lot of wonderful screen actors fall flat on their face on the stage, from George Clooney, to Tom Hanks, to Robert DeNiro. Lithgow is the exception. He may actually be better on the stage than he is on the screen. Even if you can’t stand Roahl Dahl, you should see this for Lithgow’ amazing performance.
This brings up the age old question of how much an artist should be able to get away with if they are producing great art. Caravaggio, whose work I adore, was a murderer and arguably a child molester. If you love Picasso‘s work, never read about his personal life. It will sour you on him. N.C. Wyeth, the one artist who I felt was a paradigm of good behavior and great art, has a cloud of suspicion over the end of his life. Woody Allen, whose films I loved, has proven himself to be such a terrible man that I have a hard time watching his films anymore. There are certain transgressions that are impossible ever to overlook. If Adolf Hitler were a great artist (which he wasn’t), it would be impossible to excuse his life. However, lesser transgressions, like being a very unpleasant person, is usually excused for great artists. Sometimes you come up against an example like Caravaggio, who certainly produce great art, but committed murder. Do you still love his art? It is a moral dilemma. Personally, I have come to the conclusion that, for the most part, you have to disconnect the art from the artist.
I was surprised to learn this was the first play written by Mark Rosenblatt. There is such assurance in the dialogue, such deft handling of the characters development that I would have suspected this was a mid career effort from a talented playwright. This has everything I love in a Broadway play: great writing, great acting, and a single stationary set with no projections.