theater review: the lehman trilogy @ Le petit theatre

L-R: Ryan Hayes, David Lind and Leslie Nipkow (photo: Brittney Werner)

The Lehman Trilogy @ Le Petit Theatre, New Orleans
Review by Paul Oswell
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In 2008, we watched TV news as employees filed out of glass and steel lobbies, rivers of forlorn faces and bankers boxes. It’s these boxes that construct the worlds of the Lehman family (yes, those Lehman brothers) in The Lehman Trilogy, a sprawling, three-hour capitalist saga (currently playing at Le Petit Theatre through 19th October). 

Three actors constantly move dozens of boxes like brick slabs, fabricating stock rooms, school desks, throne-like boardroom chairs, train carriages and even the Tower of Babel. The boxes contain scraps of humble beginnings, machinery for expanding empires, and spiritually destructive amounts of money. The boxes frame two centuries of The American Dream. 

We know how the Lehman dream ended. We start with its beginning. In 1844, Heyum Lehmann (Leslie Nipkow) arrives in America from Rimpar, Bavaria. He is renamed Henry Lehman, the first corrupting imposition of his new home. Brothers Emanuel (Ryan Hayes) and Mayer (David Lind) follow, and they establish a fabric store in Montgomery, Alabama. 

What follows is one of the most technically impressive shows you’ll see on a New Orleans stage. Nipkow, Hayes and Lind barrel through a conveyor of characters, employing only changes in accent and countenance. Age and gender are transcended as we race through the years, and meet townsfolk, children, wives-to-be. The actors move continuously and seamlessly between the roles, all while balletically sliding tables and throwing cotton bales and hefting those endless boxes around a split-level stage. The blocking alone is a work of art. 

Three hour-long installments cover the rise and the fall; of money and capital, of humanity and essence. This first generation cloaks itself in Jewish-European identity, marking holidays and sitting shiva for seven days when Henry dies. America requires more corruption, though. Commerce here equals trade with slavers, befriending them, mollifying them even after the Civil War. 

Decades pass, fabric becomes cotton becomes coffee becomes commodities and railways and banking. In two generations, the Lehman family are millionaires with New York offices. We are told (the script is mostly delivered in the third person) that their children have no Rimpar or Alabama blood. They are pure New York: rhesus positive for capital. 

While the cast exploit the entire stage, the video wall behind loops through increasingly industrial backdrops. Cotton fields, factories, stock exchanges and unstoppable trains hurtle us through the years. By the third act, the Lehmans are purebred capitalists, mainlining economic growth, the only landscape a glowing panorama of abstract prices. Eventually, the numbers fall. Seven-day shivas have become three-minute silences. A lightning financial meltdown. A 150-year erosion of character. Boxes asunder on the floor. The end. 

The U.S. Census of 1860 records that in reality, Mayer Lehman owned slaves. This fact is not mentioned on stage. One of the criticisms of this story - which won Best Play at the 2022 Tony Awards - is that the horrors of slavery are mostly elided. They mostly are. 

I’m not Jewish, so I’m unqualified to talk on the validity of harmful tropes, another point commonly raised about the work. I took it as an indictment of all craven men. Those who worship only commodity and leverage fall far from any aspect of humanity, no matter their background. 

There are many conversations to be had around The Lehman Trilogy beyond the scope of this review. What can’t be denied is the genuinely astonishing work done by the cast and creative team on this specific production. Leslie Nipkow, Ryan Hayes, David Lind, and the entire crew pull off a formidable, evocative, artistic high wire act. The questions about America in those boxes are undoubtedly difficult ones, but we should open them and sit with their contents.

The Lehman Trilogy plays at Le Petit Theatre through October 19th. Click here for more information and ticketing. 

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