The Lehman Trilogy

by Stefano Massini adapted by Ben Power

seen at the Piccadilly Theatre on 27 July 2019

Sam Mendes directs Simon Russel Beale as Henry Lehman (originally Hayum Lehmann), Ben Miles as Emanuel (originally Mendel) Lehman and Adam Godley as Mayer Lehman, with piano accompaniment by Candida Caldicot, in this production designed by Es Devlin, which was originally presented at the National Theatre and is now enjoying a West End run.

The collapse of the Lehman Brothers Bank precipitated the financial crisis of 2008; this play examines the history of the firm by returning to the arrival of Henry Lehman in the United States from Bavaria in 1844, followed by his brothers in Emanuel in 1847 and Mayer in 1850. The first part shows them developing a business based in Montgomery, Alabama, originally selling cotton goods, then expanding to sell farm supplies, and eventually raw cotton to northern cotton mills. In the late 1850s, after Henry's death in 1855,  Emanuel set up a New York office and gradually, partly in response to the Civil War, the firm moved into banking and eventually finance. Descendants of the brothers maintained a relationship with the firm until the 1960s.

The play opens in a deserted modern office with the New York skyline behind it, and news broadcasts of the Lehman collapse playing on a radio. Then the skyline fades, replaced by an indeterminate seascape, and a frock-coated Simon Russell Beale appears and begins to narrate the story of Henry Lehman's arrival; the modern office swivels round on a great revolve and a small goods store can be created out of cartons which are later redeployed to make other spaces in the glass box of the main set. 

The initial immigrant story of the brothers is intrinsically interesting, and the different characters of  of the three are clearly delineated by the three actors as Henry's determination ('the Head'), Emanuel's enthusiasm ('the Arm'), and Mayer's placating diplomacy ('the Potato') combine to create brilliant success, imperilled only by the disaster of the Civil War.

In the second part, the story of the firm is continued by the same three actors. They had taken minor roles apart from the three brothers in the first part (including, amusingly, the prospective brides of Emanuel and Mayer); now, the ingenuity of the play is further revealed as they play sons and a grandson of the original brothers, and later, non-family members running the company, to take the story forward to the Great Depression (the end of the second part) and finally to modern times. By the end, we are back at the stark collapse of the bank, understanding more perhaps of the immigrant ambition and brilliant business acumen which gradually succumbed to a more impersonal ruthlessness and greed. 

Indeed, the play is exceptionally good at expounding financial matters to the layperson, by depicting the shift of interest in tangible goods to the intangible (but more profitable) trading in money as such. The excitement is there, but also the chilling costs when things go wrong - the evocation of the suicides on the day of the Wall Street Crash in 1929 is particularly grim. The style of the play, the actors often directly addressing the audience more as narrators than characters, and often using and repeating phrases across the decades, imposes a unnerving unity and almost tragic impetus (notions of hubris are never far away, this being a major focus of concern reaching back to surviving Greek tragedies and Aristotle's analysis of the form in the 4th century BC). The use of language, and the deployment of only three actors (also a nod to the conventions of Greek tragedy), are wonderful techniques for bringing dramatic coherence to what could otherwise have been a sprawling and unmanageable story. The result is an extremely stimulating and enjoyable piece of theatre.