Author: Joe

“Grabbing and greed can go on for just so long, but the breaking point is bound to come sometime.”  That quote is from Herbert Lehman who was a partner at his family’s firm from 1908 through 1928.  He later became governor of New York and a U.S. senator.  His part of the tale told in The Lehman Trilogy is smack dab in the middle of the story.  This three act masterpiece begins before the Civil War and ends with the firm’s demise in the financial crisis of 2008.

The first part is subtitled “Three Brothers.”  In 1844, Henry Lehman emigrated from Bavaria to the “magical music box called America.”  By the time his two brothers followed, he had already established a business in Montgomery, Alabama selling fabrics and suits.  It didn’t take them long to figure out how to get involved in the lucrative cotton business.  Emanuel headed north to New York and the family connections to the cotton mills were established.

Although their roots were in the south and rebuilding was a profitable venture after the Civil War, the business relocated to the bustling economic juggernaut that was (and still is) New York City.  In Part II, “Fathers and Sons” expand their empire with shrewd strategic investments in railways, airplanes and Hollywood.  Emanuel’s son Philip is now running the show.  In 1929, the firm was renamed The Lehman Corporation in recognition of another iteration of its changing business model to an investment company.  This financially focused entity was based on “pure money” and “pure adrenaline.”  Then the stock market crashed and the Great Depression ensued.

The final part of this trilogy is “The Immortal.”  Philip’s son Bobbie is now at the helm.  Money is still being made investing in the weapons of war, televisions and computers.  When he ages out of the business in the 1960s, the company transitions to a series of non-family members.  Trading becomes the dominant profit machine.  The company gets ensnared in the subprime mortgage abomination.  With no major political connections any longer, they are made an example of and left to die.

The story of this firm’s implosion is well known.  The Lehman Trilogy remarkably tells this 150 year saga with three actors inhabiting all of the characters.  They play all the Lehman men, their wives, children, other businessmen and even the owner of a Greek diner in Nebraska.  The amount of detail covered is staggeringly dense yet simplistically clear to follow.  The explanation of the business and its evolutions, particularly in the first two acts, is exemplary storytelling.

Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley and Ben Miles perform this 3:20 two intermission marathon without leaving the stage.  And what a stage it is!  In the enormous Park Avenue Armory, Set Designer Es Devlin has created a spinning multiroom music box which looks a conference room perched atop the world of privilege.  A single piano underscores the dialogue.  The actors are astonishing in their ability to inhabit so many people with incredible physical and vocal expressiveness.

Sam Mendes directed this outstanding production with both brilliant style and focused storytelling.  Everyone knows the ending.  The firm dances through danger before spinning out of control.  The visual representation of that is stunningly theatrical, disorienting and nothing short of genius.  “The important thing is not to stop.”

Stop they did, however, with famous images of its employees carrying their file boxes out of the building at the end.  In my corporate career, file boxes represented the storage of documents and business history.  Here they are creatively employed throughout in support of this epic.

This piece is long and dense.  If I had one small quibble, it would be with the third part.  The business dealings and strategic machinations early on as the company grew were beautifully explained.  When the crazy days of out of control moneymen arrived, the opportunity to elucidate the business model did not happen with the same ease.  I assume that was an intentional choice in order to represent the heady unregulated financial markets as a lunatic asylum.

The Lehman Trilogy is highly recommended for theatergoers who enjoy superb actors giving outstanding performances.  It’s also highly recommended for those with a keen interest in tales of finance and American business.  In our current time of immigrant bashing it’s also highly recommended as a tale of the American dream.  And the American nightmare.

www.armoryonpark.org

The front of the plantation is a large image which is tilted forward from the stage at the Flea Theater.  At the start of Southern Promises, the audience leans in to a conversation between the master and his wife.  On his death bed, he now concludes that the abolitionists are right.  Slavery is a mortal sin and a blight on our civilization.  He has changed his will to emancipate all of his slaves after he passes.  It does not take long until the Mrs. changes that plan.  She has different desires entirely.

Thomas Bradshaw’s incendiary 2008 play is being revived with “POC” casting, as in People of Color.  In a thoughtful prelude, the cast introduces themselves, speaking about the contradictions and considerations of being non-white individuals performing in all sides of this story.  An interesting angle is presented.  If a person is half white and half black, which role are they most suited for?  Are there new insights to be gained from this production?

Influenced by The Great Escapes:  Four Slave Narratives, some of the dialogue is lifted from those writings.  The play is relentless in its depiction of predictable atrocities including, rape, whipping, forced nudity and murder.  The in-your-face depiction is likely why this play was considered so provocative.  America’s existence is still marred by this history.  I’m not convinced that Southern Promises is a revival that accomplishes anything more than theatrical shocks, however.

There is a contemporary feel to Director Niegel Smith’s staging such as the choice of music for the interludes.  Some of the cast has southern accents, others do not.  As written and performed, the play telegraphs every scene so you know exactly what is going to happen, crushing any sense of dramatic storytelling.  There are some impressive visuals for sure but the odd contradictions and decreasingly believable storyline neutralize the power of the subject matter.

A brother of the deceased is a preacher from New York who comes to visit and believes “abolition is the worse thing for these niggers!”  With freedom, “they drink all day and look for white women to rape at night.”  This play speaks frankly and roughly throughout.  In the same scene, the house slaves of the plantation sneak sips of mint juleps behind their master’s back.  Benjamin is the mild-mannered type but is directed to chug-a-lug like a buffoon before he is caught.  Huh?

The hypocrisy of the religious smears its ugliness all over this play.  This theme allowed this material to shine a harshly critical spotlight on people who justify their actions with the simple phrase, “it’s God’s will.”  The prayer scenes, however, are overlong and exaggerated.  Rather than coming across as disturbingly devout and sadly delusional, the villains appear clownish.  If this entire play was staged as edgy farce, that might make sense.

The last few scenes of the play strain credibility and Southern Promises looses its dramatic focus.  I have experienced so many exceptional theater pieces over the last five years where I had to face our troubled racist history and its import today.  The segregated theme park in 3/Fifths.  Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview and Marys Seacole.  An Octoroon and Underground Railroad Game.  Even the improbable comedy Plantation! at Lookingglass Theater Company in Chicago.

When the Kansas’ song “Carry On My Wayward Son” transitioned one of the scenes, I wondered if the choice was meant to be funny.  There are moments in Southern Promises that are memorable.  There are definitely scenes that are shocking, as intended.  Without a consistent tone, the subject matter gets diluted and grinds to an anticlimactic finish.  This revival does not make a case for the play as important as the troubled history it wants us to aggressively confront.

www.theflea.org

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Imran is a successful novelist hosting a writer’s book lunch at home.  Retreating to his living room, Layla follows him to introduce herself.  There is immediate sexual tension despite some differences of opinion.  The banter eventually leads to “I was hoping I could fuck you into a different person.”  For every line that surprises in Hatef**k, there are ten riddled with clichés, lecturing or banalities.

Both characters have a Muslim heritage but describe themselves as non-practicing.  Layla is a professor wanting to be published.  She has a serious non-fiction book which tells a meaningful story about their people.  He writes bestsellers where his kind are depicted as dark-skinned terrorists.  The conflict is fairly obvious.  Why is Imran writing to placate white people’s assumption of Islam?  It repulses her but oddly excites her as well.

In multiple scenes between erotic couplings, the two develop a deeper attraction despite a wide gap in their belief systems.  Why is she hanging around?  That manipulative angle is the most interesting part of this play but is not significant enough to flesh out these thinly drawn characters.  Instead of writing terrorist fiction, she comments, why not “write about you and me, the slutty non-Muslims.”  He tells her “you’re a fucking rainbow killer.”  The dialogue is painfully forced and often as implausible as the story arc.

Sendhil Ramamurthy admirably injects a naturalistic believability to Imran.  He is successful, sexy and an embodiment of the American dream.  He is living the life and having a good time while doing so.  Wanting his books to be on Layla’s syllabus at Wayne State University is a repeated plot hook which never makes any sense.

As Layla, Kavi Ladnier has to be likably indignant with a subtext of social climber tacked on.  The role is too preachy to be believable.  If the competing sexual and literary conquests between the two of them were less romcom, this combination might be a more compelling study.  As it stands now, Hatef**k is just another play about opposites, this time with a Muslim twist.  The topic is admirable and relevant but that doesn’t make the play a good one.

Additional roles might have broadened the narrow scope of this work to make this lecture more appealing.  I found myself siding with Imran who has grabbed capitalism by the horns despite a questionable moral compass.  As written by Rehana Lew Mirza, his motivations seemed clear if objectionable.  When the play ended, I was not sure either character grew or learned anything.  I know I didn’t.

www.wptheater.org