The Lehman Trilogy

The Lehman Trilogy truly is an epic: in three parts, over three hours, it depicts 163 years of one aspect of American history.  It is an object lesson in the establishment of American capitalism, and it begins when penniless, Jewish immigrant Henry Lehman gets off the boat in 1840s America.  It proceeds all the way to the infamous collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.  This vast sweep, peopled by generations of Lehmans, their wives and children, their associates, clients and competitors are all represented, played by, brought to life and – most original of all - commented upon by just three actors.   

Peerless actor Simon Russell Beale begins as Henry, Ben Miles is his younger brother Emanuel, and Adam Godley is youngest brother Mayer.  Throughout, right up into the 21^st century, the three actors wear the same black suits of the 19^th century (design by Katrina Lindsay) which reminds us – throughout – of where and with whom it all started.  Beginning with a small fabric and clothing store in Montgomery, Alabama, (who knew?) the brothers begin to deal in agricultural equipment, then branching out into cotton trading as middlemen, and so to the move to New York and ‘Lehman Bros’ becoming a bank, an investment bank, a trader and broker…  And we know how that turned out.  In essence, the trilogy tells us a story – and in a sense it is all ‘told’, that is it is narrated - a story of ‘rags to riches’, then richer, then richer still… until collapse.

Of course, the three astonishing performances – made up of part narration, part character interaction, part impersonation – grip our attention – perhaps less so when the balance tips toward narration as in Part II - but they are a triumph of a very refined form of acting and of Sam Mendes’ direction.  Mr Mendes, surely, has directed and held together something highly risky and highly original.  Just as astonishing is the fact that the entire story is acted out in a glass box, which at times rotates, with a few black and white props – desks, some chairs, piles of document boxes for instance – an inspired design by Es Devlin.  And there are beautifully judged and created projections – also all black and white - by Luke Halls that melt magically from one to the next and give us location and time.  On stage, clearly visible, is pianist Candida Caldicot, whose music is the fourth character, again providing ‘comment’, sometimes direct, sometimes oblique, on the story.

But, as remarked, the actors’ mode of performance comments on the three brothers and on everyone else and creates a certain objective yet intriguing distance between them and us.  We are engaged, but we don’t forget we’re watching a play.  Brecht may well have approved; he wanted a style of acting like that of a witness at a traffic accident later describing it to others and in doing so, ‘playing’ all the participants – the car drivers, the cops, the woman with the pram and so on.  So, here we see short, round Simon Russell Beale become not just Henry Lehman and his descendants, but also a cotton plantation owner, a cotton factory owner, several women – some simpering, some sexy – and a frighteningly precocious child (who grows into a brilliant adult) – and this is all delightfully entertaining per se.  String bean Adam Godley becomes a Southern belle whom Henry relentlessly courts – and even while Mr Godley does this, adapting posture and facial expression, he continues to ‘narrate’ or describe the very character he is playing.  Square jawed Ben Miles is not just vehement and opinionated Emanuel but also an adoring toddler on Daddy’s lap (that is, at that point, Mr Godley’s lap) and later a ruthless stock trader.  These transformations do more than comment on character and motive; they comment on the story itself.

Originally written as a nine-hour radio play in Italian by Stefano Massini, one imagines the adapter Ben Power has – apart from cutting six hours - kept the spirit and the stance and tone of the original.  And that is a curious thing: ‘objective’, yes, but also ambivalently admiring of the Lehman brothers’ daring, imagination, opportunism and, indeed, ruthlessness.  They are, to begin with, three observing Jews trying to make a living and building something that they could not have built in Bavaria whence they came.  America!  Land of opportunity!  They are not misty-eyed: they are ever pragmatic, realistic businessmen.  But the text itself and the characters have no qualms that cotton, the initial basis of their fortune, is built on slavery.  Maybe that’s just the way it was.  None of their business.  Nor is it as clear as it might be how the firm survives the Civil War, or the Great Crash of 1929 when so many of their associates and competitors are jumping out of high windows.  Are they just smarter?  Better insulated against catastrophe?  We can make our own inferences; this is not leftist agit-prop.  It is a saga – and if you like, a tragedy.  With greater and greater wealth comes hubris, comes over-confidence and the almost complacent abandonment of the perspicacious calculations and judgements that had carried the firm to such heights – and yet moral judgement is withheld.

The Lehman Trilogy has been received with glowing even ecstatic reviews in London and New York.  Indeed, I could have seen it in New York, but the tickets were (ironically?) $440 – so I guess the capitalist class saw a paean of praise plus a cautionary tale.  It is something of a marathon, but the mode of presentation is so original in direction, performance, music, design and the very approach to its characters and events that we are held to the bitter end – the twilight of some gods of American capitalism – or a mere hiatus?  See for yourself.

Michael Brindley     

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