The Lehman Trilogy : A Voyage to Capitalism

 

Being a man is hard. Ask me. And being a less confident man is way too hard. Brutal. And then add three spoonfuls of bad luck, stir with placid life philosophy and then imagine the product.

I stood up from my office chair. Felt for a cup of oddly mixed milk-tea from the office canteen upstairs. Walked towards the door, and I touched myself (not there, dirty mind! Let me rephrase it) - I looked for my mobile, and saw it lying among piles of files. I took it up and then saw a message. From TodayTix. I won a lottery ticket for a theatre! After trying for three weeks! I ran towards my chair - bent over to pull out my wallet - took out the credit card and when it finally happened, I threw my hands up - jubilant and unnecessary confident. Grinning, I turned around. A patch of the whole blue sky through the window. The product is awesome.

TheLehman Trilogy returned to London's West End last month. It was a blockbuster in New York’s Broadway last year and then was a massive superhit in London in pre-covid time. I heard about it. I wanted to watch it. I wanted to feel the history and thrill and the ups and downs of capitalism in its glory in the most capitalist country in the world. I wanted to hear the story of an immigrant family belonging to one of the most persecuted races in the world. I was excited.

I brisked through Drury Lane with dim lights looming over. I passed the Prince of Wales pub and reached Gillian Lynne theatre, collected the ticket from the Box Office (my name was written on it) and went upstairs along with a sea of audiences.

I heard that it’s been completely recast, with Michael Balogun, Hadley Fraser and Nigel Lindsay. But frankly, I was here for Sam Mendes. I adored his movies American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Skyfall, Spectre, 1917, but I never was lucky to watch any of his stage directions. And this ‘The Lehman Trilogy’ is an epic piece about three Jewish immigrants who would later define America, as we know it, and is getting raving reviews.

It’s a three-actor play telling and re-telling the story of the Lehman brothers Henry, Emanuel and Mayer Lehman from the time they arrived in the US as Jewish immigrants from Bavaria in the 1840s till the 2008 collapse of their namesake Bank that’d effectively trigger the last great global recession. It was masterfully written by Italian playwright Stefano Massini. The three middle-aged black clad powerful actors donning plethora of characters at the same time, the revolving glass stage/house, the massive carved LED background for effects and mesmerising live piano scores turned the boring wikipedia history reading into an enchanting experience.

It was really long - over three and half hours, with two intervals. I tried draught, IPA and ale at three sessions, while I saw the evolution of Western capitalism in its modern form through the rise of a Jewish family over two centuries, and how America was (I don’t prefer is) a ‘Magic Musical Box’.

I especially was fixated when Bobby, the flamboyant last Lehman, kept dancing with the new money while growing old and then dead, with the back canvas spinning faster and faster, and then we came to know that the new money sank the bank. Irony.

The story doesn’t judge, nor does it take any moral highstage. It is neutral in slave trading, or the misery of slaves in cotton plantations, or the peril of common men in crony capitalism, rather it weaves through southern plantations and northern banks, and dissects the DNA of the great American dream all the way to its darker pasts.

The story doesn’t tell about the 2008 crisis either. Maybe it doesn’t want to, or doesn’t have any more space. It ends abruptly, like life ends, a family ends and a legendary bank ends.

I loved every bit of the show. Theatre and history at its best! I walked to the bus stop, it was around 11 at night. Cold was on rise. A pretty girl asked for directions, a shabby old man asked for a particular bus, and I scrolled through the pictures I took on my phone.

Being alive is hard. Ask me. However, sometimes it feels just perfect.