The founding of a bank – even one so infamously entangled in the financial catastrophe that led to the greatest economic crash since the Great Depression – may not immediately sound like a promising premise for a play. However, Ben Power’s skillful adaptation of Stefano Massini’s drama about the rise and fall of Lehman Brothers – the banking colossus that imploded in 2008, heralding the beginning of the Global Financial Crisis – uses this seemingly specific subject matter as a far broader lens. Part memoir, part history lesson, it’s a story that not only charts the fortune and failure of the Lehman family, but also the birth of modern American capitalism and the insatiable greed that feeds it.
This intergenerational epic is split into three parts told over three-and-a-half hours (with two intervals, mercifully). It begins in the mid-1800s with the arrival of the first of the Lehman dynasty to enter America: Bavarian immigrant brothers Henry, Emanuel and Mayer. Their humble, hard-grafting entrepreneurism is noble enough at first, as they open a small shop in Alabama selling fabrics and suits. However, when disaster strikes the local cotton plantations around their adopted home, the three brothers spy opportunity in the ashes. For more than a century, this instinct for plucking profit from tragedy allows the Lehman's and their descendants to generate enormous wealth from slavery, war and numerous other breeds of human suffering. And as their power and influence ascends, so too does their social status as they evolve from lowly Jewish shopkeeps into the most powerful men on Wall Street.
...the sheer virtuosity required to pull off such a production is enough to be worth the price of admission.
Directed by multi-Oscar-winning auteur Sam Mendes (the man behind films like American Beauty, Jarhead and Skyfall), this 2018 production has enjoyed hugely successful seasons at London’s National Theatre, in the West End and on Broadway, snagging an impressive five Tony Awards along the way. And on its face, it’s easy to see why it’s proven such a hit. Es Devlin’s revolving boardroom set becomes a hypnotic prism for Luke Hall’s shifting, panoramic screen visuals as they conjure New York through the ages, Alabama’s cotton plantations and the vividly coloured nightmares of various Lehmans. The three actors on stage – with superb performances in this Australian iteration by Aaron Krohn, Adrian Schiller and Howard W Overshown (reprising the role from his turn at Los Angeles’ Ahmanson Theatre in 2022) – not only portray the three original Lehman brothers, but also their children, their wives, and a host of other characters, deftly springing from one characterisation to the next with an agility that is truly breathtaking. Add to this the demands of the text itself – dense, tongue-tying prose that unfolds in deliciously detailed stanzas, drawing the audience into a world they cannot see – and the sheer virtuosity required to pull off such a production is enough to be worth the price of admission.
And yet, it’s hard to leave this play without feeling at least some degree of frustration. While it may be a biopic of sorts, The Lehman Trilogy is not a documentary, and therefore happily picks and chooses which historical and social contexts it includes, and which it glosses over completely. The Lehmans are drawn so affably, the details of their lives peppered with humorous winks and whimsical physical comedy set to the strains of Nick Powell’s dreamy piano score, that their often ruthless pursuit of money feels almost inconsequential. Female characters are short-changed throughout, providing little more than occasional comic relief as they lend their feminine gaits and shrill tones to the male actors they’re inhabiting.
But whatever this play may lack in depth, it makes up for it with strength of purpose. The final Lehman to head his family’s bank, Bobbie, died in 1969 – at which point, the play shifts gear, speeding through the next few decades without even a basic explanation of how such a bright light in the financial firmament fell so far. This could be viewed as a glaring omission, but in fact, it’s a display of confidence in the ambition of this sprawling work. The Lehman Trilogy is not intended as a moral tome or a cautionary tale about the corrupting influence of greed. It may seem a convenient cop out to simply handwave away the years leading up to the firm’s 2008 demise, but it keeps the action rigorously rooted to the titular point: the lives of the Lehmans.
The Lehman Trilogy is playing at the Theatre Royal Sydney for a limited season until March 24, 2024. Tickets start at $69 and you can get yours over here.
