Theater hit about the Lehman brothers can now be seen in Amsterdam

In 1856, brothers Emanuel and Mayer Lehman were trading with four cotton plantations in Alabama, in the southern United States. The Jewish immigrants from Bavaria in Germany sell raw cotton to ‘someone who turns the dust’. When Mayer explains this to his soon-to-be father-in-law Isaac Newgass in the play The Lehman Trilogydoes it sound like this:

Newgass: ‘What do you sell?’
Mayer: ‘We sell cotton, Mister Newgass.’
Newgass: ‘And isn’t that cotton fabric?’
Mayer: ‘If we sell it… not yet.’
Newgass: ‘If it’s not dust, who will buy it from you?’
Mayer: ‘Someone who turns it into dust. We’re in between, you see. We are exactly in between.’
Newgass: ‘What kind of profession is that, sitting in between?’
Mayer: ‘A profession that does not yet exist, Mister Newgass: we are starting it.’

In a few years, the number of plantations with which the Lehman brothers do business grows from 4 to 24. And the profits go to ‘middlemen’ Mayer and Emanuel Lehman. “Nobody lives on a profession that doesn’t exist,” Newgass sputters. Anyway.

‘Money river that always flows’

The Lehman Trilogy leaves like a migrant fairy tale, with a gilded American dream. This find, this new profession, opens the gates to a “river of money that always flows.” Soon the family expands their trade from coffee, coal and grain to railroads, oil, weapons, Hollywood. At the end of the 19th century, financial services took over from commerce. “Our raw material is money,” Philip Lehman, son of Emanuel, says in the piece.

That’s the movement in The Lehman Trilogysynchronous with the evolution of capitalism: increasingly abstract, increasingly fictitious, increasingly lucrative. From stuff, to commodities, to money trading and then fictitious money; credit, stocks, junk mortgages. And we know how that ended, in 2008, with the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers bank, which ushered in the global banking crisis. The money river dried up, at the expense of millions of Americans who lost their savings, mortgages, jobs, homes and hopes.

From 1844 to 2008

A decade later, the Lehman brothers had successes on the West End and Broadway and from this weekend they can be seen in Amsterdam. In The Lehman Trilogy (2013) Italian writer Stefano Massini examines the workings of capitalism and the mechanisms that lead to excess and moral decay. His piece is a parable about the loss of the American dream.

Massini tells the complete history of the family, from 1844 to 2008, in a bold 177-page drama. The story has 29 characters; the brothers themselves, their wives, children, business partners and successors. After a French world premiere and a successful Italian performance, versions all over Europe followed; the piece has been translated into 24 languages. After this, Massini pushed into the stratosphere of the greats, when his play aroused the interest of American film and stage director Sam Mendes (Skyfall, Spectre, 1917). In the meantime, he had also adapted his own play into a brick-thick novel (2016).

Mendes read about the play in the obituary of a Milanese theater director. Since 2008, he had been “obsessed” with the Lehman brothers and their story, he told in 2020 variety, and he was pleasantly surprised by Massini’s text. Because of the ambitious set-up and time span, but also the original style: without a clear dramatic form, with little dialogue and characters who often speak about themselves in the third person. Mendes called it “an epic poem.” In a sweeping adaptation, British playwright Ben Power reduced the play from five to three o’clock. Three actors played all 29 characters, including women, rabbis and toddlers.

Mendes’ London West End version was showered with praise and awards in 2018. This was followed by an American triumphal march with once again rave reviews (‘epic’, ‘overwhelming’) and a shower of prizes: the production was awarded five Tony Awards, including for best play and best director.

Dutch version

But this Anglo-Saxon success had actually completely eluded Flemish director Guy Cassiers. He happened upon Massini’s book a few years ago in a newspaper ‘best of the year list’. ‘The description really appealed to me: a fable about capitalism, told from the perspective of the rise and fall of one representative family.’

Only later did he find out that it was originally a play, which now led a successful American existence, in a handy abbreviated version. ‘But unfortunately’, Cassiers laughs on the phone, ‘we didn’t get the rights for the English version’. Massini wanted a new adaptation to hark back to the Italian original. In retrospect, he is happy with that, says Cassiers. ‘From the source material (translated by Els van der Pluijm, red.) we could now put our own accents.’

The ‘wonderful writing’ of the play, says Cassiers, offers plenty of theatrical possibilities. ‘We start from telling; the actors transform on stage into characters and back again – stepping in and out of the anecdote. In this way we can be creative with the distance in time, and playfully add our own commentary from the present.’ Maker and actors have respect for the historical characters, but also view them with current knowledge.

cotton plantations

Cassiers therefore adds an important new accent to his staging at International Theater Amsterdam. For there was one crucial point on which Massini was criticized, especially in America: his piece skims very superficially along the gruesome origin of the cotton that formed the basis of the Lehman fortune: the labor of slaves on the southern cotton plantations. Cassiers: ‘Massini wrote his piece from the Lehmans’ point of view, and this was a blind spot for them, as throughout their history they strategically closed their eyes to the immoral sides of their trade.’ In his direction, a text bar on stage supplements this omission with the necessary historical context. Cassiers: ‘This is not a story about good people who gradually corrupt. There’s always been an inky side to their fortunes.’

On stage, the viewer sees – with dramatic irony – the Lehmans’ capitalist dream derailed further and further over the course of 165 years, until the bank only serves the interests of the bank. In the end, the Lehmans disappear completely from the company they once started, and the connection remains in name only. Until that too comes to an end in 2008 with a shock.