High rollers caught in the spotlight in Enron

 

27 January 2010

Aristotle might have had something to say about the fact that, on the same day as Enron opened in the West End after sell-out runs at Chichester and the Royal Court, its director Rupert Goold won a Critics’ Circle Award for his outstanding production. Was this a snippet of synchronicity too far, even for a must-see highbrow hit? After all, if there’s one thing that those working on Lucy Prebble’s dazzling account of the collapse of the Texan energy giant know, it’s that the boom times can’t last for ever.

To this observer, who gave a five-star rave for the Chichester premiere, a small but crucial helping of sparkle has disappeared. Maybe it’s been drowned under the six-month deluge of superlatives that Prebble rightly received for the thrillingly clear yet delightfully playful — there’s a barbershop quartet of stock market analysts, for example — way she conveys the overarching financial hubris of Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling (Samuel West). Skilling’s disastrously over-ambitious idea was to count as profit all of Enron’s mooted future earnings; he’s abetted by chief financial officer Andy Fastow (Tom Goodman-Hill), who creates a chain of bogus companies to hide Enron’s losses.
Goold gives all this his customary whizz-bang treatment, flooding the stage with ticker-tape electronic screens of Enron’s stock price, neon lights and, when the US energy market is deregulated, light-sabres for a spectacularly well-drilled ensemble of financial Everypeople.
West skilfully suggests Skilling’s metamorphosis from an overweight, bespectacled nerd to superfit financial Superman, although his astonishing thriller-like momentum, which had the clinical purity of Greek tragedy, has dissipated. This time around, I was more struck by Tim Piggott-Smith as Enron’s disingenuous founder, prepared to turn a blind eye to Skilling’s dealings while the going’s good. Slight quibbles notwithstanding, this will set the West End’s stock riding high.
Until 8 May. Information: 0844 482 5140, www.enrontheplay.co.uk.

Enron
Noel Coward Theatre
St Martin's Lane, WC2N 4AU

Enron at the Noel Coward Theatre, review

If ever a play seemed to reflect the times in which we live, that play is surely Enron.

27 Jan 2010

The young playwright Lucy Prebble was working on the piece long before the recent financial collapse and the prolonged economic crisis into which it has plunged us.

But in telling the story of the spectacular demise of the gigantic American energy corporation in 2001, in which a bubble suddenly burst, she hit upon a model, and a dramatic metaphor for all our present woes. Lucky timing has undoubtedly played a part in the success of the play which has enjoyed sold out runs in both Chichester and at the Royal Court before this present West End transfer. But seeing the play for the second time, I’m left in no doubt that there is also a formidable dramatic intelligence at work here.

There is something of the classical tragedy about the piece as she charts the rise and fall of an enterprise whose stock prise rose and rose even as it concealed its debts in a series of shadow companies that it passed off as assets. It is a tale of hubris, recognition and despair though one can’t help but note some important differences from our present situation.

The guilty men at Enron were sentenced to jail. Already our bankers are back on the bonuses and Fred Goodwin got to keep his pension. No one has accused our own dear bankers of fraud of course. It would however be pleasant to detect a few signs of penitence.

What’s remarkable about the drama though is that it makes even a financial ignoramus like me feel up to speed on issues I don’t really understand.

There is superb clarity in Prebble’s story-telling as well as high drama, and terrific bravura about Rupert Goold’s often dazzling production that brings the mysterious world of high finance to vivid, comprehensible life.

The shadow companies for instance, are presented as voracious raptors, eating up the debt down in the bowels of the corporation. The chaos of electricity deregulation in California, which led to a series of power cuts, is turned into a dazzling Star Wars-style choreographic routine with light sabres. The Lehman brothers are represented as Siamese Twins, a barbershop quartet sings share prices.
Perhaps there is a touch of the flash Harry about Goold as a director, but the theatrical trickery seems to reflect the play’s subject matter, in which appearance is constantly at odds with reality.
The production is is also blessed with some terrific performances. Samuel West grippingly charts the transformation of Enron’s chief executive Jeffrey Skilling from gauche nerd to ruthless financial master of the universe, before his sudden decline into panic and despair almost makes you feel sorry for the bastard.
Tim Pigott-Smith is wonderfully creepy as Enron’s founder, Ken Lay concealing deep-seated greed and ruthlessness with folksy charm and religiosity, while Amanda Drew brings a welcome touch of female sexuality to this masculine play as a hardboiled executive finds herself shafted, in every sense, by the odious Skilling.
In our present hard times, at least those involved with this production will be laughing all the way to the bank.
Rating: * * * *

Review: Enron

Monday, 21 September 2009

Review: Enron

Premiered this summer in Chichester and now making the move to Sloane Square's Royal Court, Lucy Prebble's second play Enron has achieved a quite astonishing level of success. Bolstered by four- and five-star reviews earlier this year, the entire run at the Royal Court sold out before opening and a West-End transfer has already been announced. Fortunately, the play lived up to its billing and provided a highly entertaining and educational evening.

Telling the story of Enron, a much-feted energy corporation whose surprise collapse in 2001 leaving billions of dollars of debt, Prebble has done a fantastic job in making the subject of financial manoeuvring very accessible and engaging, whilst never patronising her audience, and her work is given extra strength due to the current state of the economy and our subsequent realisation that this was not an isolated incident as first believed.

One of the main strengths of this play is its unerring plausibility, and this is perfectly exemplified by the well-drawn characters and the performances of each of the leads. There are no pantomime villains here, no evil chuckling over bags of swag, but rather 3 businessmen making increasingly bad decisions. Tim Pigott-Smith as Enron's wily founder Ken Lay is full of backslapping southern bonhomie which belies his ruthlessness and complicity as the share price soars; Tom Goodman-Hill was highly impressive as the financial officer Andy Fastow whose inventive schemes to hide the debts are brilliantly explained in a key scene with a Russian doll-like collection of boxes; and finally Samuel West is just superb as Jeffrey Skilling, the chairman who led Enron on its merry dance. We follow him on his tumultuous journey from the overweight, gauche Harvard ingenue on his arrival, through his ruthless climb to the presidency (shafting his rival, the ever-excellent Amanda Drew), losing weight and morals as he rises to the top and then desperately trying to maintain the untenable position through ever-increasingly outlandish schemes. West imbues his performance with enough humanity so that one does end up sympathising somewhat with him, yet all-the-while remaining a thoroughly unlikeable chap.

The rest of the company also deserve a mention though, as they work extremely hard and do an excellent job: singing, dancing, playing at dinosaurs, fighting with lightsabres, all and more are carried out with aplomb and fantastic energy, the scene changes in particular were admirably swift.

Rupert Goold's direction here, particularly in the first half, is simply dazzling. Bringing together elements of song, movement and video, and weaving in highly effective lighting, sound design and a visually arresting set, the combined effect is often breathtaking. There's a strong vein of dark comedy which highlights the absurdity of what Enron was able to get away with, and whilst the energy of the play subsides slightly in the second half with the shift to a more traditional story-telling and less of the Gooldisms, the sheer quality of the acting carries it through.

This is a great play, which at any other time would have been well-received anyway due to the inventiveness of the direction and clarity in demystifying the murky pool of financial nefariousness, but its timing now and the light it sheds on the reasons for the state of the world today elevates it to outstanding. Thought-provoking and educational, but above all, highly educational: do not miss!