Review Roundup: The Public Theater's GIANT - All the Reviews!

The Public Theater presents the New York premiere production of Giant, an epic love story with book by Sybille Pearson and music and lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa.

Based on the classic novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edna Ferber, Giant is a new American musical that spans generations in an epic chronicle of the state that's like no place else on earth: Texas. The show opened last night, November 15. Directed by Michael Greif, Giant runs through Sunday, December 2. Find out what the critics thought of the new musical below!

The complete cast of Giant features Enrique Acevedo (Miguel); Raul Aranas (Polo); Mary Bacon (Adarene, Mrs. Lynnton); Kate Baldwin (Leslie); Miguel Cervantes (Angel); Natalie Cortez (Juana); Rocio Del Mar Valles (Analita); John Dossett (Bawley); Jon Fletcher (Bobby Jr., Bobby Sr.); PJ Griffith (Jett); Michael Halling (Lord Karfrey, Lynnton); Brian d'Arcy James (Bick); Mackenzie Mauzy (Lil Luz); Doreen Montalvo (Lupe); Michele Pawk (Luz); Allison Rogers (Heidi, Lady Karfrey); Isabel Santiago (Deluvina); Martin Sola (DiModeo); Bobby Steggert (Jordy Jr.); Matthew Stocke (Mike); Katie Thompson (Vashti); and William Youmans (Pinkie).

Ben Brantley, The New York Times: Anyone who knows the work of its composer, Michael John LaChiusa, can be assured that the score will soar and swirl appropriately. The ambitious and inventive creator of "Hello Again" and "Marie Christine," Mr. LaChiusa can set notes to swooping and fluttering like wind-borne leaves in a storm. But there's another, countervailing force at work here: a mighty tug of gravity that keeps pulling the show down to earth and even threatens to bury it. That force is the weighty obligation of condensing a plot-packed, multigenerational doorstop of a novel - about big old, unruly Texas, to boot - into a work that floats through 3 hours 15 minutes of stage time. 

Thom Geier, Entertainment Weekly: Here [LaChiusa] rolls out hummable song after hummable song. The score is richly and satisfyingly complex, with each major character getting a musical motif or style. In the end, though, it is the story and its epic but human sweep that will draw you in. As in Ferber's novel, LaChiusa touches on themes that are both universal (the conflict between fathers and sons, the inevitability of death and loss) and particular (anti-Latino bigotry, Texas' transition from ranching to an oil-based economy). The overarching issue: Just how susceptible are we to change? (Grade: A)

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