The Lehman Trilogy and the Ecosystem of Ancillary Concerns

The Lehman Trilogy, at the Huntington Theater (Photo courtesy of the Huntington Theater)

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It is a gesture of dramatic bravado to stage the 150-year rise and fall of a multi-generational immigrant family in America, and do it all with just three actors and a minimal set. But some stories have an appeal so trenchant that few accoutrements are needed.

The Lehman Trilogy is that kind of narrative. Beginning life as an Italian novel written in verse by Stefano Massini, it was first performed as a 5 hour play in Milan in 2015. Following a version in France, the play was adapted by British dramaturg Ben Power for the National Theater in London. Winner of five Tony awards in 2022 including Best Play, The Lehman Trilogy has now been translated into 24 languages. The first production to originate in the US is currently being performed at the Huntington Theater in Boston.

Clearly this is a story much larger than its Americana setting, one that encompasses a complex of universal themes: immigration, religion, family, money, ambition, hubris, personal and public success and failure. The demise of Lehman Brothers in 2008 was a collapse heard round the globe, so moving the story of this spectacular fail from the pages of business news to a theatrical setting is not a surprise.

But more than just relocating these events to a theatrical setting, The Lehman Trilogy transforms this business rise and fall story into the familiar frame of a family saga. Much of what happens in the play is not visible to the audience, so the actors step out of character to carry the narrative forward. This is markedly different from the more common, “show, don’t tell” technique, with a definite emphasis on the telling over the showing. It is an approach that also lightens the analytical work load placed on the audience. This style of storytelling eases us into just letting the flow of events unwind in their inevitability, similar to the pleasures (and passivity) of listening to a bedtime story being read really well.

For those dazzled by the magic of live theater (that would be me,) The Lehman Trilogy is terrific and unforgettable. Three actors (Steven Skybell, Joshua David Robinson and Firdous Bamji) plus a roving musician (Joe LaRocca) are on stage for over three hours as three generations of Lehmanites come into being. (“I’m responsible for a total of 21 different voices,” Skybell acknowledged.) These performers are, to the man, phenomenal. A minimalist set designed by Boston based designer Sara Brown (along with lighting by Robert Wierzel and projection by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew) makes the transitioning of time seamless. Scattered 19^th century wooden crates that speak to the Lehmans’ early business ventures in cotton trading become backdrops for video portrayals of their ever expanding business empire. Under the direction of American theater powerhouse Carey Perloff, the trilogy just flows. The throughline of the story and our interest in it do not flag or falter.

It used to be that a work of art based on real people and events could be responded to as a singular and standalone entity. But the shelf life of that ivory tower approach has passed now that context and nuance matter more than ever. Ancillary questions about content, point of view and intention are now part of an ecosystem that instantly forms around a new work.

And the questions regarding The Lehman Trilogy are many. In her New York Times review of the British production two years ago, Laura Collins-Hughes touches into some of these “beyond the play” concerns:

In the captivating production…it relies largely on an unspoken agreement between actors and audience — to imagine together, and let fancy crowd out fact.

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Sort of the way that heedless investors looked right past all warning signs in the faith-based run-up to the stock market crash of 2008. Illusion is illusion, after all, and financial markets, like the theater, require a certain suspension of disbelief — though when the fantasy bursts in theater, the fallout is less ruinous. When investors halted their collective game of make-believe 13 years ago, mammoth financial firms like Lehman Brothers met their swift demise, and the world’s markets suffered the aftershocks…

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This is where the mechanics of the play, with these deft and lovely actors breathing such life into the brothers, coax us into an ease at odds with moral logic as we watch their genteelly brutal acquisition and stockpiling of wealth.

These are issues that many theatergoers have been asking. In addition to an unquestioned and morally compromised version of capitalism, other significant issues from this family saga are also not addressed in the play—racism, antisemitism, sexism, among others.

The Huntington Theater is cognizant of these concerns, and commentary has been provided in the printed program to openly discuss many of these problematic topics.

There is no doubt that the Lehmans made their initial fortune in the antebellum South through buying and selling cotton, an industry founded on slave labor. There is also evidence that the Alabama Lehmans were slaveholders themselves. Dr. Kyera Singleton, Executive Director of the Royall House and Slave Quarters, expresses her view in the program notes: “I think the play is about the erasure of slavery… The Lehman Trilogy sidesteps who built this wealth and how central slavery is to not only the wealth of the Lehman Brothers but also, to the development of the American economy.”

Regarding antisemitism and its absence in the play’s narrative, Huntington artistic director Loretta Greco ponders, “What does it mean to tell this story now, a story of Jewish financiers in the face of swelling antisemitism worldwide?” In a printed program interview with Dr. Stephen Whitfield, expert in American Jewish history, the difficulties in measuring and tracking antisemitism over time are acknowledged. Even so it is an ongoing reality, and it played a part in the Lehman family story.

A few of the women in the Lehman family—wives and mothers of the men who ran the family business—are portrayed in cameos by the three performers, but the play is essentially a male-centric, father and son storyline. No Lehman women were business partners or participants in Lehman Brothers (emphasis on “Brothers.”) In the play’s version of this family’s history, the influence of women has been nearly eliminated.

As a way to navigate these controversial issues, Greco makes the case for giving theater a larger stage than just the proscenium:

This is why theater is still so essential to our lives. It provides us with the joy of ritual and communion while asking us to struggle with our uncomfortable legacy, to strive for understanding and empathy, to build a kind, strong world together.

This is not just gratuitous glorification of one’s chosen profession. Greco’s words align with a troubling reality in this moment of the cultural timeline.

Peter Brooks, professor of comparative literature at Yale, has been a longtime advocate for stories being core to literature and to humanity. His 1984 book, Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative, became the go to text on the topic.

But his view has changed. Stories and storytelling have become so ubiquitous that they are now overused and misused, particularly in the persuasion industries of politics and marketing. As a result, other methods for communicating information have been eclipsed.

Brooks’ latest book, Seduced by Story: The Use and Abuse of Narrative, outlines the turnaround in his thinking.

We need stories. We would die without them, but we have to be more analytic about them and how they’re working on us most.

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We’ve forgotten they’re constructed and that they can be subject to analysis. Stories have designs on you. They want to seduce you.

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Narrative can flood our critical facilities and knock them out of order, because a great narrative is very absorbing.

More than ever, we are being firehosed with storytelling that is pitch perfect and expertly calibrated to win us over. From Tucker Carlson to Joe Rogan, the onslaught is relentless. Even when the intention is to simply entertain, it is almost impossible to resist these carefully constructed, seductive narratives. (Just try to not watch the last episode of Succession…)

Brooks makes the case that the best antidote to address this problem is to study literature. Even as the non-STEM liberal arts are being viewed as expendable, understanding literature and its forms is the most effective way to perceive how stories work and how they can manipulate our thinking.

Meanwhile false narratives and alternative realities are clouding, obfuscating and misrepresenting valid political and social concerns. A populace that does not have the capacity to analyze these narratives—many intentionally designed to manipulate and persuade rather than present the truth–is powerless to evaluate and dispel the deception. The implications of this widespread cultural blind spot are enormous.

As is the case with another contemporary, prize winning, multi generational play about a Jewish family, Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt, The Lehman Trilogy is a powerful theatrical experience that is actually enhanced by conversations, questions and commentary. While Leopoldstadt is a work of fiction that is not based on real characters as is The Lehman Trilogy, both plays have incited strong reactions, particularly regarding what was included and what was left out. Decisions about inclusion and exclusion are Solomonic choices every writer must make in crafting a meaningful and memorable narrative arc, but the ramifications of those choices are significant.

Perhaps we are living through a time so fractious that we must learn how to balance our hunger for storytelling with a concomitant awareness of the political, social and ethical implications that a story carries. Storytelling for storytelling’s sake may no longer serve the collective good as we come to embrace the ecosystem of ancillary concerns that inevitably erupts around a powerful work of art.

The Lehman Trilogy is at the Huntington Theater until July 23. It moves to the Broadway Playhouse in Chicago in September.