The highest compliment I can pay to this show is that it was equally enjoyable for me - who already knew quite a lot about the world’s biggest bankruptcy - and my wife, whose knowledge of business is quite intentionally at the lowest end of the scale. The production is a remarkable achievement, particularly as it is only the second work of the playwright Lucy Prebble who is remarkably only 28 years old.
It may not have been Miss Prebble’s intention but this is in fact business education at its best; it is informative, funny, entertaining and almost factually correct (the major change was in the identity of Skilling’s female rival, presumably for legal reasons and because of their alleged affair). Otherwise the main players were all there with perfect characterisations; Ken Lay as Chairman, Geoff Skilling as CEO, Andrew Fastow as CFO; they were all played brilliantly and the pressures they were all under were very well portrayed.
The humour came from, among other things, a hilarious caricature of Lehman Brothers as an example of the greed and weakness of the investment banks as they conspired to help Fastow in his financial frauds and put aside rational judgment in the pursuit of Enron’s banking business. Funniest and cleverest of all was the portrayal of the hidden debt - the raptors - as Jurassic Park monsters who became more and more demanding as Fastow fed them increasingly unsustainable borrowings.
The only criticism I could make was that some of the music and flashing lights were a bit over the top for my tastes but this is maybe a personal thing and in any case these did not go on too long.
The finale was very cleverly done, reminding us of something that I had forgotten - that the Enron collapse was very close to 9/11. It also showed us how Skilling, despite deserting the sinking ship and selling all his shares, was the one who got the most vilification and the longest sentence. Kenneth Lay got a different kind of sentence - he died before facing trial - while Fastow got off relatively lightly by shopping the other two.
I only had to see the way that my wife was engrossed to the end and had lots of questions afterwards, to see that this was a production that would appeal to anyone who is interested in the way that humans can behave when they jump on a bandwagon of greed and temptation. The tickets are not cheap but they are value for money. And Browns restaurant next door is excellent too!
