The Brothers Fall, But The Epic Play Rises Triumphantly: Reviewing The Lehman Trilogy's West End Return
★★★★ | It is the classic tale of the American dream: Hayum Lehmann, the German-Jewish son of a cattle merchant, lands on the shores of New York City. He takes on a more appropriate, more American name – Henry Lehman – and wryly observes that during the boat journey to America, he has transformed from a reserved teetotaller to a skilled gambler and ‘expert drinker’. America, we learn from the first five minutes of The Lehman Trilogy, is not simply a land of freedom: it is a land in which man becomes transformed. Corrupted.
As the Lehman Brothers arrive, so too has The Lehman Trilogy landed on the West End in a homecoming production following enormous success on Broadway, a previous West End run, and its original run at the National Theatre. Returning with a slew of Olivier and Tony Awards to its name, it is undeniable that this production is a hit. There were few nerves or hiccups at the Press Night performance I attended, the result of a production that has – like the company it depicts – transcended its humbler origins and become a gargantuan, well-oiled machine.
Howard Overshown, John Heffernan, and Aaron Krohn in The Lehman Trilogy. Photo Credit: Mark Douet
This is, at its heart, a grand tale of change, of the ways in which America corrupts and ultimately strips people of their identities outside capitalism. It is more Succession than The Big Short or Margin Call, centring not around financial jargon but on the complicated men who built this hyper-capitalist world. Stefano Massini’s script (adapted from the Italian original by Ben Power) intricately weaves a narrative spanning generations and centuries; with such an expansive timeline, Massini depicts the Americanisation of the Lehmans right in front of us.
Jewish rites of mourning appear and reappear, each time further altered by the assimilation of the family to American capitalist culture until there is virtually nothing left. At the birth of his son Philip in New York City, Emmanuel Lehman remarks that the boy has nothing in him of Rimpar, Bavaria. The ‘Old Country’ of tradition and family gets bred out, but what, Massini asks, is left in its place?
Under Sam Mendes’ direction, this immense five-hour script becomes a sleek three-hour production. Actors play multiple roles as they navigate a rotating office space (designed by Es Devlin) backlit by projections, all accompanied by a single pianist (Cat Beveridge), whose underscoring creates an effect that is at once deeply cinematic and yet rooted in theatrical tradition. Indeed, The Lehman Trilogy is an apt demonstration of Mendes’ skill in both mediums; he imbues the play with the energetic pace of a movie blockbuster whilst maintaining the playful experimentation so integral to theatre.
The Lehman Trilogy in the Gillian Lynne Theatre. Photo Credit: Mark Douet
Shouldering the glorious responsibility of it all are just three actors: John Heffernan (as Henry Lehman), Howard W. Overshown (as Emmanuel Lehman), and Aaron Krohn (as Mayer Lehman). All three deliver masterclass performances, playing the original Lehman brothers (and every generation that follows) with confidence and ease.
But it is Heffernan who steals the show, demonstrating incredible range as he transforms before our eyes: one moment he is the ramrod-straight, fast-talking Philip Lehman, the next he adopts the gentle poise and high-pitched giggle of Babette Newgass; blink again, and he is now a rotund Alabama governor, his southern drawl booming through the auditorium. Each of Heffernan’s many characters is crafted with such attention to detail that each feels as compelling as the Lehman brothers themselves.
Krohn and Overshown have chances to shine – especially Krohn as the hyper-capitalist Bobby Lehman – but neither rise to the same heights as Heffernan’s propulsive, shapeshifting performance, as they often play more trope than fully-rounded character.
John Heffernan as Philip/Henry Lehman. Photo Credit: Mark Douet
It may be the case that some of this ‘tropiness’ is baked into the text itself. Yes Massini’s script soars, and for the most part displays an incisive use of chorus, anaphora, and repetition, but at some points it loses the nuance which the loaded themes of assimilation, Jewishness, and corrupted dreams necessitate. In particular, Bobby Lehman is more of a hyper-capitalist supervillain than a calculating industrialist, a flattening that lessens his impact compared to his predecessors.
This is somewhat excusable; however, more frustrating is the lack of interrogation of the fact that Lehman Brothers was founded thanks to the cotton trade, fuelled entirely by slave labour. Slaves barely exist in the world of the play – an overseer is portrayed as a kindly southern gentleman; and when the Civil War arrives, it is greeted with lamentations that, to an American, read uncomfortably close to the racist ‘Lost Cause’ narrative which still pervades the South. Massini is clearly capable of tackling such heavy topics with delicacy, so it is all the more upsetting, then, that the shadows of slavery looming over the Lehman family and America at large are mostly cast to the side.
Howard Overshown in The Lehman Trilogy. Photo Credit: Mark Douet
Still, The Lehman Trilogy is a sweeping, if somewhat flawed, epic. With each passing generation, the poison takes greater hold as traditions are abandoned, names are changed, and familial loyalty frays until the only truth that remains is that ‘to buy is to exist’. Hayum Lehmann, the German-Jewish son of a cattle merchant, lands on the shores of America and finds himself now Henry Lehman, the drinking, gambling southern salesman; what a fall from grace this intricately wrought production offers us to bear witness to.
★★★★
The Lehman Trilogy plays at the Gillian Lynne Theatre until 5 January, 2025.
