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.

Aristocrats

by Brian Friel

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 30 August 2018

Lyndsey Turner directs this revival of Brian Friel's 1979 play about the decaying O'Donnell family, unusually Roman Catholic denizens of a 'Big House' in Ballybeg, County Donegal (most 'Big Houses' belonged to Anglo Protestants).

The house has seen better times - repairs are outstanding and there is virtually no money to keep it going - and the family in the 1970s is not what it was either, having descended from Chief Justice to sausage factory worker in four generations. The senescent father (James Laurenson), principally present to us through his rambling diatribes overheard through a baby monitor, still holds sway over Judith (Eileen Walsh), the daughter dutifully caring for him, and can still strike terror into is wayward son Casimir (David Dawson) when he is visiting from Hamburg, but he seems to have less effect on Alice (Elaine Cassidy) visiting with her husband Eamon (Emmet Kirwan) from London, and the youngest daughter Claire (Aisling Loftus) still living at home but about to be married.

The family has in fact gathered for Claire's wedding, but Tom Hoffnung (Paul Higgins), an American academic, is also ferreting around the house and taking notes about family anecdotes as part of a research project. The situation is thus ripe both for peculiar revelations and for some sociological theorising and analysis, and at times both seem a little forced. However, it is not so much that there are skeletons in the closet (as might be expected from the dramatic set-up), but rather that the siblings - apart perhaps from the determinedly practical Judith - are deeply strange people: Alice losing herself to drink because her marriage has soured, Claire veering between the highs and lows of manic depression, and Casimir holding himself together with inexhaustible nervous energy. When Eamon remarks to Tom that the family half believe that Casimir's German wife and three boys are a figment of his imagination we are left forever unsure of how to take anything that Casimir says, and his palpable shock when Tom presents him with incontrovertible evidence that one of his family memories is impossible only strengthens the impression that he is lost in daydreams.

Though there are weirdly comic moments, much of what we see instils an atmosphere of debility and even despair; the similarity to Chekhovian ennui is increasingly obvious, reinforced by the country house setting, the faded gentility of the family, and the eventual collapse of the means to keep the whole enterprise going. But the style of this particular production makes it hard to grasp the tone of the piece, with the result that it takes more time than it should to settle into the world we are witnessing. Rather than creating a realistic setting, Turner and designer Es Devlin have designed an almost featureless pale pastel green acting space with a model of a house standing in for the real thing, and stage directions at the beginning of each act read out to set the scene. Where such a model was a powerful symbol in The Inheritance here it looks a little contrived, and the constant presence of the cast hovering in the background when not required to be on stage, so masterfully effective in Matthew Lopez's play, here makes the action more difficult to follow.

This is a pity, because the individual performances are often very good, and David Dawson in particular is brilliant as Casimir; and the concluding mixture of melancholy and hope is quietly affecting.

Faith Healer

by Brian Friel

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 1 August 2016

Directed by Lyndsey Turner and designed by Es Devlin, this production features Stephen Dillane as Frank, the faith healer, Gina McKee as his partner Grace and Ron Cook as Teddy his manager.

The play consists of four monologues given by Frank, Grace, Freddy then Frank again, each actor alone on the stage in a different setting, each recounting directly to the audience some episodes from Frank's itinerant journeys around Wales, Scotland and Ireland as a faith healer who occasionally (but not often) effects cures.

It is an extraordinary theatrical device, removing the usual situation in which characters on stage can interact with one another, and instead relying on extended reminiscence to reveal both character and narrative. Matters are further complicated by the fact that the accounts of the three speakers differ so markedly in some details that it is impossible to know exactly what happened; or rather, it becomes necessary for the audience to include these contradictions in its assessment of the characters and their experiences. Although the general shape of the 'story' seems relatively clear, the different accounts of it are impossible to reconcile with absolute finality.

Hamlet

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Barbican on 23 October 2015

This production is directed by Lyndsey Turner and designed by Es Devlin, with Benedict Cumberbatch as Hamlet, Anastasia Hille as Gertrude, Ciarán Hinds as Claudius and Jim Norton as Polonius.

Anticipation was almost ridiculously high because of Benedict Cumberbatch's huge popularity - tickets sold out within hours over a year before the first performances. Early previews received very mixed responses, not least because of some baffling rearrangements and cuts to the text (though the full text is very rarely performed by anyone). Notoriously, the play began with the 'to be or not to be' speech, though by the time of the official first night this famous soliloquy was placed later (but still, earlier than usual). Reviews of the finished product praised Cumberbatch but found fault with various aspects of the production.