The latest incarnation of The Lehman Trilogy (a 2013 play which has been translated into 24 languages) opened at the National Theatre in 2018 before transferring to the Piccadilly Theatre in 2019 and then returning in 2023 to the Gillian Lynne Theatre starring Michael Balogun, Hadley Fraser and Nigel Lindsay. And now it’s back, once again, this time starring John Heffernan, Aaron Krohn and Howard W. Overshown who reprise their roles from the recent International Tour.
The Lehman Trilogy, by Stefano Massini is a three-act play (at over three and a half hours long with two intervals) that takes the audience through three historic generations of The Lehman Brothers.
In 1844, a young man, emigrates to America from Bavaria, looking for a new life. From trading cotton to coffee, along with his brothers, they see a gap in the market and become ‘middlemen’, buying and selling things for a profit. The brothers go from strength to strength, reshaping and renaming the business to fit with the needs of the community at the time. But as the generations of this family business go by, eventually the inevitable happens and the business crashes in the 2008 financial crisis.
It doesn’t sound like something you’d choose to go and watch at the theatre, does it? In fact, when I asked people what it was about before going, it sounded rather dull. But I was assured the topic for this play was secondary to the incredible writing, acting and the way in which this story is brought to life on stage. And they were right. The production is truly sublime. The three actors, Henry “the head” Lehman, Emanuel “the arm” Lehman and Mayer “the potato” Lehman command the stage for the entire performance, moving boxes around the office, writing on glass walls and playing all of the characters in the story.
The set design, gloriously simple by Es Devlin, has an IMAX type screen wrapped around the entire stage, providing visual backdrops ranging from the cotton fields of Alabama to the streets of New York City. At the end of the play, things spiral out of control visually, causing anyone with motion sickness to avert their eyes from the stage for several minutes, sadly losing the ability to focus on the impact the story is trying to have. There is then a strange explosion of people who make their way onto the stage, their backs to the audience and no explanation of who these actors/lost tourists are, or where they have come from (after three hours of watching just three actors).
Regardless of this, I had the most wonderful evening watching The Lehman Trilogy. The two intervals made this long play accessible to those who can’t sit still for hours on end and broke it down into bitesize pieces, allowing the audience to process what was happening. It’s a strange concept and a niche story but an experience everyone should have. So if you’ve been thinking ‘this doesn’t sound like it is for me’ – book a ticket and go anyway because I really don’t think you will be sorry you did!
Reviewed by West End Wilma
Accessible Performances
Audio-described – 30 November 2024, 3 January 2025
BSL – 16 November 2024
Captioned – 7 December 2024
