'Gegant', a splendid biographical sketch with revenge

The never-ending conflict between Israel and Palestine is a thorny issue on which few speak their minds, as is currently evident among European leaders, except for Pedro Sánchez, who are incapable not only of influencing but even of condemning the genocide that the extremist Netanyahu government is practicing in Gaza and Ciza. Deadly silences stand between the desire for an impossible peace and the blood of the thousands of murdered Palestinians. As you well know, any criticism, including this one, of the actions of the Israeli government is considered by international Zionism as an act of antisemitism.

It is true that antisemitism is pointing its finger at Europe, where the far right is climbing, as the Jewish author of this interesting work, the British author Mark Rosenblatt, points out. Giant It is a work conceived as a biographical note on the writer Roald Dahl and his alleged anti-Semitism in which Josep Maria Pou makes good on the title. He is a giant of interpretation. We don't know what Roald Dahl (1916-1990) was like, but we do know what Pozo's Roald Dahl is like according to the Rosenblatt text that he has made his own. What a composition! And yes, Dahl is capricious, inquisitive, unpleasant, arrogant, intelligent and dialectical. And anti-Semitic, although he said he was anti-Israeli.

Rosenblatt builds a work based on real events and from the stir caused by Dahl's literary criticism in 1982 of an illustrated book about the Lebanon War by the writer of Newsweek Tony Clifton. That writing provoked condemnation and possible blackmail from the Jewish world and alerted the publisher of one of the best-selling authors of the moment to the financial damage it could cause. The European editor, Tom Maschler, sought a way for Dahl, without changing his opinion, to create a space of kindness, but the American editor, Jessie Stone, a recent arrival and also Jewish, wanted a public apology. Conflict arose. Over the course of little more than a meal at Dahl's house under construction, his intransigence in denouncing the crimes of the Israeli army, mediated by Tom Maschler, and Stone's harsh criticism, which closes the sensational first act.

Dahl died without changing his mind. His heirs would do so years later. But even though Dahl may have been a bit of a stretch when he accused the Jews of being cowards and wished for Israel's demise, the truth is that much of his criticism, the silence of Israel's inhabitants, is shockingly relevant today. Or are we not facing a horrible genocide? Mark Rosenblatt, the author of Giant, seeks to expose Dahl's anti-Semitism by ignoring the bloodshed. And the ending is a clear example. A small, great revenge. Curtain.

We're going to see the performance because the play is worth it and because the journey to the conviction contains moments of great theater. The second act, in which we learn about the writer through his lover, the gardener, the maid, and his friend Tom, drags a bit, but fortunately Josep Maria Pou is in the mix, very well accompanied by a captivating Claudia Benito who grows in each role, by an immense Pep Planas, and by a very effective Victòria. It's worth going to the Romea.