Mark Rosenblatt’s play 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.

Lithgow plays Roald Dahl in 1983, when the pending release of his book The Witches is shrouded by the controversy he’d stirred through an article in which he condemned Israel’s recent invasion of Lebanon and shamed Jews for not denouncing the act. Whether that last item was a crass overstep or a sign of latent antisemitism is the subject of the play, as a Jewish woman from his American publishing house is sent to his home in England to persuade him to apologize. He refuses, unwilling to bow to public opinion, and the clever nastiness which made his stories so indelible reveals itself to be one of his key character traits, as he needles her with increasingly insensitive remarks whose intentions are fiendishly evasive: does he mean what he says, is he simply enamored by the process of devising new jabs, or is it all just for attention?

How personalities are conveyed, revelations meted, and momentum sustained is a testament to Rosenblatt’s immense talent. The Dahl he and Lithgow create is a towering dramatic figure and a completely rounded character. He is also the piece’s obvious villain from the very beginning. Despite the complications it purports to admit to this foregone conclusion (his charity work, the bond he develops with Jessie, the American, over their children), the play’s tension comes from waiting for Dahl to crack and finally confirm our suspicions. But while Dahl increases in complexity, Jessie is smoothed out into a righteous heroine with an act-ending dressing down of her opponent. Sides are thus taken, and every word spoken takes on the tenor of that bigger discussion.

Still, Giant spends some two hours playing is-he-or-isn’t-he before a mic drop finale that conclusively proves (by dramatizing an actual interview he gave to The New Statesman) that he is. Or, in the most undeservedly graceful reading, that his stubbornness so blinds him to consequence that he’d be willing to sound like he is. It’s a terrific character study. The issue is that Giant also spends those two hours playing cat and mouse with the broader question of whether anti-zionism equals antisemitism; Dahl being the only character to firmly decry the invasion and take issue with Israel’s governance. He dodges the main accusation by bringing up valid concerns over war, displacement and colonialism, which erroneously and irresponsibly intertwines the two thoughts as the play goes on. Closing the play on a confirmation of Dahl’s antisemitism, Rosenblatt bangs the gavel on the conflation: if Dahl was lying about the roots of his anti-zionism, surely so must others be guilty of that masquerade. 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.

Giant is in performance through June 28, 2026 at the Music Box Theatre on West 45th Street in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.

There’s going to be a new queen at the Imperial this summer. Lea Michele will depart Chess on Sunday June 21. The new Florence Vassy will be announced at a later date. A new block of tickets will go on sale next week.

Michele made her Broadway debut at the Imperial Theatre 30 years ago in Les Miserables. Since then, she has become a household name for her performance as Rachel Berry on Glee, and took Broadway by storm as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl. 

In Chess, she stars alongside Tony Award winner Aaron Tveit, and Nicholas Christopher. Chess also features Hannah Cruz, Tony Award nominee Bryce Pinkham, Bradley Dean, Tony Award nominee Sean Allan Krill and an ensemble that includes Kyla Bartholomeusz, Daniel Beeman, Shavey Brown, Emma Degerstedt, Casey Garvin, Adam Halpin, David Paul Kidder, Sarah Michele Lindsey, Michael Milkanin, Aleksandr Ivan Pevec, Aliah James, Sydney Jones, Sean MacLaughlin, Sarah Meahl, Ramone Nelson, Fredric Rodriguez Odgaard, Michael Olaribigbe, Katerina Papacostas, Samantha Pollino, Adam Roberts, Regine Sophia, and Katie Webber.

Chess features a new book by Emmy Award winner Danny Strong, with music and lyrics by Emmy and Tony Award nominees ABBA’s Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus and Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award winner Tim Rice. It is based on an idea by Tim Rice. The production, which is the first Broadway revival of Chess, is directed by Tony Award winner Michael Mayer and choreographed by Drama Desk Award nominee Lorin Latarro with original orchestrations by Anders Eljas, orchestrations by Anders Eljas and Brian Usifer, and music supervision by Brian Usifer.

Chess features scenic design by Tony Award winner David Rockwell, costume design by Tom Broecker, lighting design by four-time Tony Award winner Kevin Adams, sound design by John Shivers and video design by Tony Award nominee Peter Nigrini. Johanna McKeon serves as Associate Director, Travis Waldschmidt serves as Associate Choreographer and Music Direction is by Ian Weinberger. Casting is by Jim Carnahan C.S.A. and Jason Thinger C.S.A. Hair, Wig and Makeup Design are by Luc Verschueren for Campbell Young Associates.

Chess runs at the Imperial Theatre on West 45th Street in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.

The warning signs came early. I got a bad feeling early in Antigone (That Play I Read In High School) when our contemporary narrator, the play’s one-woman “Chorus,” concluded her quick-here’s-the-backstory recap of Oedipus’ tragic fall—slept with mother, murdered father—with a quippy: “So…that wasn’t great.”

Yikes! All the same, I did my best to stick with playwright Anna Ziegler’s remarkably inept new work, a temporally displaced feminist riff on Sophocles’ Antigone now at The Public Theater through April 5. But despite some intriguing structural choices and a few strong performances, Ziegler’s play quickly grows mired in tonal confusion and a frustratingly thin takeaway.  

In this Antigone, our guiding Chorus has a single voice: the soothing tones of two time Tony Award-winner Celia Keenan-Bolger, a welcome presence. She speaks of discovering Antigone’s tale of defiance in high school, and recalls its profound impact on her. Now an adult, she is unexpectedly pregnant, and faces a decision similarly complicated by the shifting whims of powerful men.

Alongside and around the Chorus’ fragmented narration, a reframed version of Antigone’s story plays out. In this telling, the events are dislodged from a clear time, classical and modern mushing together. And rather than seeking burial for her brother, the dilemma for Antigone (Susannah Perkins) is also a pregnancy, and the question of who decides her own body’s future. 

At its core, this reframing works, attacking the original play’s questions around bodies and familial duty from a new angle. But Ziegler’s text baldly underlines the point, while never providing her characters a dimensionality that might allow us to invest emotionally. 

Tonally speaking, the adaptation feels muddled. Dramatic confrontations are undercut by constant, abrupt shifts into juvenile humor. Most arrive in the form of the awkward King Creon (Tony Shalhoub, doing Moss Hart-as-despot) and buffoonish retinue (the trio of Ethan Dubin, Katie Kreisler & Dave Quay). The tonal whiplash is evidently deliberate, but I confess bafflement at the goal. True, many Greek tragedies are surprisingly (if darkly) funny—but not self-mocking, as this Antigone often feels. 

Nothing is clarified in Tyne Rafaeli’s frequently clumsy direction. Overly conspicuous blocking distracts in many scenes—circling, always these actors are circling!—and leaves tender moments feeling artificial, or forced. Rafaeli leans into the script’s tonal dissonance, and her actors struggle to make sense of the contradictions. 

Antigone herself is a mess, here. At first, deliberately so: Perkins has a lot of fun playing the grieving, horribly depressed Antigone’s descent into debauchery, particularly in an early scene where she throws herself at a hipster bartender named Achilles (no, he sighs, not that Achilles). Later returning to the palace, Antigone spars enjoyably with her betrothed (and also cousin), Haemon, played with moving open-heartedness by the always excellent Calvin Leon Smith. Perkins is enjoyably prickly both here and with her sister, Ismene, though Haley Wong never quite communicates Ismene’s intense attachment to her sister that will later be crucial. 

Yet Antigone’s motivations grow messy as the play proceeds. Her naivety at the consequences of a back-alley abortion betray the character’s intelligence up to this point. Would Antigone really be so shocked at Creon’s willingness to discard her? Would she waste her breath attempting to reason with him, in an extended debate that hashes out obvious points vis-à-vis morality and politics? When Antigone finally strips before Creon and guides him through each part of her body, entreating him to recognize her humanity, the words are too evidently aimed at us—us the audience, us the world of today. Yet Ziegler has not motivated any of it within the action of this story.  

Equally frustrating is the play’s conclusion, which circles back to the Chorus’ identification with Antigone without deepening it. “Antigone inspired me” is a fine starting point, but feels thin as a dramatic conclusion, and the closing attempts at profundity ultimately fall flat. 

Perkins and Keenan-Bolger are nonetheless excellent throughout, bringing heartbreaking warmth and aching humanity to a play that never finds enough depth to equal their powerful work. 

‍Antigone (That Play I Read In High School) is now in performance at The Public Theatre. For tickets and more information, visit here.