The Lehman Trilogy at the Guthrie
I remember exactly where I was when I heard about the failure of Lehman Brothers. That moment, like the attacks on 9/11 and the day the coronavirus shut down the world in March 2020, indelibly shaped the way my generation (at the inflection point between Gen-X and Millennials) sees the world. But unlike those disasters–one terroristic, the other biological–the Great Recession was self-inflicted; the inevitable result of unchecked greed, cynicism, and exploitation that enriched an elite few at the expense of everyone else until it could no longer sustain itself. Most of us still know nothing about what Lehman Brothers actually did, other than that they were a Wall Street investment bank that got in over its head with mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps–financial products that remain bafflingly opaque 16 years later–or why its failure nearly broke the global economy. The Lehman Trilogy brings us back to the moment it all started, highlighting the inextricable bond between the immigrant experience and American capitalism along the way.
Kicking off the Guthrie Theater’s 2024-2025 season, The Lehman Trilogy is a breathtaking theatrical experience–a story in three parts, by three actors, in three spellbinding hours. Following the lives of three Jewish brothers from Bavaria, The Lehman Trilogy explores the cycle of ingenuity and determination that turned a small fabric store in Montgomery, Alabama into a global financial powerhouse behind nearly every major modern industry, from cotton to oil, tobacco to movies, railroads to shipping, war machines to computers. But as with many immigrant stories, the further away in time and distance from the sacrifices of the first generation, the more likely future generations are to take their life for granted, until contempt and complacency return them to the humble origins their forebears worked so hard to escape.
Mark Twain observed that “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” The Lehman Trilogy is poetry on full display. Three actors play more than sixty roles over the course of 164 years, stripping down to the core elements of character and motivation that are highlighted by simple changes in style, accent, posture, and manner. Themes and motifs repeat and return, building and contrasting past, present and future. The set of The Lehman Trilogy plays an equally important part in this poetry, framing every moment in a physical embodiment of the company’s eventual collapse. Like a Greek or Elizabethan tragedy, the audience watches with a sense of inevitability; knowing the certainty of the outcome but hoping the characters somehow will escape their destiny. The Lehman Trilogy prompts the audience to look for the inflection points in their own time and choose accordingly.
The Lehman Trilogy runs now through October 13 at the Guthrie. Click here for tickets.
Photo by Dan Norman
