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With The Lehman Trilogy, a joint effort of Theatre Calgary and Arts Commons Presents, it’s the manufacturing, not the play, that dazzles.
Italian playwright Stefano Massini’s historical past of the Lehman brothers, their sons and grandsons, as tailored for the English stage by Ben Energy, is extra storytelling than drama. In three hours, by three acts, three actors unspool Massini’s usually poetic ramblings concerning the risks of capitalism and the murky corners of the American Dream. The rise and fall of the empire that Henry, Emanuel, Mayer and their sons and grandsons constructed and misplaced might make for a tedious, boring night, particularly for anybody not enthralled with economics. Nonetheless, the mesmerizing pleasure created by director Sarah Garton Stanley, her designers and technicians and three multi-talented actors ensured that didn’t occur.
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Massini’s script takes its audiences from when Henry Lehman arrived in New York from Bavaria in 1844, to Alabama, and again to the crash of the Lehman monetary empire in New York in 2008. That’s 164 years of main occasions in America’s historical past, in addition to the Lehman household’s private historical past.
Henry (Michael Rubenfeld) is joined by his youthful brothers Emanuel (Alex Poch-Goldin) and Mayer (Diane Flacks), and all three marry and have youngsters. Chosen sons are welcomed into the hallowed places of work of the shops, banks and monetary establishments, whereas wives and daughters slip dutifully into the background. America experiences the Civil Conflict, the Nice Despair, the terrorist assaults of 2001, and the monetary disaster of 2007. Although intriguing and enlightening, by itself, little of this historical past lesson is especially emotionally involving or devastating.
Years earlier than the Civil Conflict, a fireplace destroyed many of the plantations in Montgomery, Ala., the place the Lehmans had their dry items retailer. By means of projections, movies and particular results, this household tragedy is made so memorable, however the extra devastating Civil Conflict is simply reported. From delicate to breathtaking, the trio works its magic for the total three hours of the present.
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Garton Stanley’s staging is exceptional. She makes positive the play by no means feels static by rigorously and astutely transferring her actors across the stage, and transferring the set itself.
Rubenfeld, Poch-Golding and Flacks create the stress, pleasure and humour this play desperately wants by their supply. The power they convey to their storytelling is electrical and compelling. You wish to hear what they should say, they usually at all times make it appear important, even whether it is typically merely rattling off info and dates.
The three actors play dozens of characters who enter the brothers’ lives, they usually profit from taking part in the ladies the lads reject or pursue. It’s all vaudeville-style caricature however it’s efficient and this play wants levity. Most spectacular are the characterizations the actors convey to the key Lehman males. They’re so distinct and revealing. But it’s troublesome to essentially join with any of them, any greater than it was to Julius Caesar, Alexander the Nice, Abraham Lincoln or Catherine the Nice while you studied them in historical past courses. Chances are you’ll marvel however they don’t really feel genuinely actual.
To the immense credit score of everybody concerned on this manufacturing, the three hours velocity by, and the visuals created by the designers and technicians (Haui, Sophie Tang, Michael Gesy, AMy Keith) are second solely to the powerhouse performances.
The Lehman Trilogy runs within the Max Bell Theatre till Nov. 3.
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