Gillian Lynne Theatre – until 5 January 2025
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
5*****
The brilliant, multi-award-winning Lehman Trilogy returns to the West End with another exciting new cast. Packing 164 years of history into a 3-hour play, Ben Power’s adaptation, originally directed by Sam Mendes, of Stefano Massini’s Italian original charts the rise of the Lehman brothers’ business from newly arrived immigrants owning one store in Alabama to financial giants.
Ben Power’s masterful adaptation uses the rhythms and repetitions of folk tales, emphasising the cyclical nature of life with the actors skilfully and charismatically telling the story in the third person creating a stunningly intelligent play that feels at once both epic and homely.
Rather than focus too much on the fall of Lehman’s, the play portrays how three poor Jewish immigrants rose to such immense wealth and power. The assimilation of the brothers and their families into American culture is made clear by the erosion of accents and traditions brought from the homeland as they expand and create new roles in business. This is history seen through their eyes, so the wars and social upheaval affecting the US are mentioned in passing in terms of the impact on the company. As the generations of Lehmans die and no longer control the board, the events leading to the fall of the bank in 2008 are shown with quiet and fatalistic detachment, contrasting with the visceral portrayal of the Wall Street Crash that the Lehman’s experienced themselves. The women in the Lehman’s lives are also portrayed through a male lens, with the brothers describing and portraying them as caricatures rather than with any deeper agency. Whether this is supposed to be male bravado or 18th century misogyny is never made clear.
West End director Rory McGregor delivers pacy and intricate action, with the cast moving around Es Devlin’s gorgeous set with immaculately choreographed precision. Devlin’s glass office and boardroom set revolves “like the magical music box that is America” as the cast shift file boxes to represent everything from carriages to shop counters to the tower of Babel. Projected onto the huge, curved wall behind are Luke Hall’s eerie and atmospheric videos depicting the fields in Alabama, the buildings of New York and unsettling dreamscapes that combine with the spinning set to create fabulously disconcerting and disorienting sequences. Pianist Cat Beveridge sits at the front of the auditorium like an old-fashioned cinema organist and accompanies the play with delightful music that adds further layers to the atmosphere on stage.
Somehow, each production of this play manages to put together a remarkable trio of actors that feel perfect for the roles. Each actor manages to be hilarious, heartbreaking and annoying in turn as they transform effortlessly from the titular brothers to their wives, children, employees and acquaintances. John Heffernan’ is wonderful as Henry Lehman, gentle but firm as the head of the company, clashing with younger brother Emanuel (the marvellous Howard W. Overshown) while youngest brother Mayer (Aaron Krohn) tries to keep the peace. Overshown has the dourest role, and is suitably stern and stolid, but has a ball when he gets to play a child. Krohn is an absolute hoot – delivering deadpan observations as Mayer and flouncing around as potential wives Together the stellar cast weave the intricate story – from gossipy asides and explanations of financial services to gruesome accounts of suicides – with style and charm, keeping the audience in the palms of their hands from beginning to end.
A simply unmissable experience – theatrical storytelling at its best.