This was published 6 months ago
The masterful Lehman Trilogy is a work tinged with human greatness
By Michael Ruffles, John Shand, James Jennings and Millie Muroi
THE LEHMAN TRILOGY
Theatre Royal, March 1
Until March 24
Reviewed by JOHN SHAND
★★★★½
The Lehman Trilogy is a 21st-century masterwork. This is true of Stefano Massini’s original novel and in some ways even more so of this play, adapted by Ben Power and directed by Sam Mendes for the UK’s National Theatre. If Hamilton partly charted the birth of capitalism, The Lehman Trilogy is a kind of sequel: what capitalism did next.
This, of course, was to move from generating profit by production to convincing people to pay “money they do not have for things they do not need”, as one character says, before the ultimate stage of making money just from money.
The dark cloud of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the financial institution that helped trigger the 2008 global crisis, hangs over all that unfolds. Unlike Massini’s book, the play begins and ends with that catastrophe, but it is not about it. It is about the slow dilution of any moral compass in relation to how one achieves wealth.
Adrian Schiller, Howard W. Overshown and Aaron Krohn together play all the characters.Credit: Daniel Boud
It tells of how a fabric store in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1844 grew into a business so monumental that its collapse could affect the world economy. That business became a bank to profit from the South’s reconstruction after the Civil War, but meanwhile the Lehmans variously had interests in cotton, coffee, sugar, tobacco, coal, railroads, oil, the Panama Canal, armaments, cars, airlines, film, TV and computers.
The book runs to 700 pages and the play is also monumental, its three acts lasting 3½ hours, although the plethora of characters – four generations of male Lehmans, plus wives and others – are played by just three people. Adrian Schiller is Henry, the first brother to arrive in the US from Bavaria, followed by Emanuel (Howard W. Overshown) and Mayer (Aaron Krohn).
The three actors also play male and female characters ranging from mewling babes to bent geriatrics, with few overt costume changes beyond sunglasses when Krohn is Bobbie, the last Lehman to run the bank – decades before it went bankrupt. So virtuosic, moving and truthful are their performances that there’s never any confusion about who is who, and meanwhile their unchanging faces across the generations compound the sense of dynasty.
The main part of the set is made up of success-shouting office furnishings mounted on a snappily utilised revolve.Credit: Daniel Boud
While the play references Jewish scripture less than the book, the story and characters form a modern theology of their own, with money their god and snowballing profits their messiah. Massini’s text is even laid out in verse-like lines, and if it’s not exactly poetry it’s piercingly intensified prose.
The characters in the third act lack the depth and stark definition of those in the first, which mirrors the book, although the novel’s diminished narrative drive towards the end is mitigated on the stage via the simple expedient of the text’s compression.
Similarly, Mendes’ enthralling and intelligent production distils its own theatricality in every way, from that abbreviated text and small cast to the monochrome costumes (Katrina Lindsay), set (Es Devlin) and projections (Luke Halls), and on to Nick Powell’s minimalist yet unifying music, performed live by pianist Cat Beveridge.
Aside from modern, success-shouting office furnishings mounted on a snappily utilised revolve, the set’s key ingredients are dozens of storage boxes. These can represent anything from a shop counter to a piano to stepping stones. All the while they are also a metaphorical house of cards – once built upon products and later just upon numbers – waiting to collapse.
“The world isn’t always as horrible as it seems,” Bobby tries to convince his first wife, Ruth. “No,” she replies. “It’s much worse.” But this production is tinged with human greatness.
Long Lost Loves (and Grey Suede Gloves)
Musica Viva
City Recital Hall, March 4
Reviewed by PETER McCALLUM
★★★½
On top of her fluid, coloured vocal artistry, Anna Dowsley displayed impressive versatility and an unsuspected flair for quick-change dramatic characterisations in this program of cabaret songs by William Bolcom and Arnold Weinstein.
Whether strutting, striding or striking poses, she owned the stage with engaging creative energy. The composer of a wide range of operas, concertos and other works, Bolcom has a legacy seldom performed in Australia, except for the occasional appearance of one of the cabaret songs he wrote with Weinstein for his wife, Joan Morris.
Anna Dowsley owned the stage with engaging creative energy.
The songs span a wide range, drawing together classical and popular styles with humour, discernment and finely honed craft. Some, like Over the Piano, evoked German Expressionism in the pianistic textures, which pianist Michael Curtain articulated with subtlety and polish. Others are garish, (He Tipped the Waiter), sassy (At the Last Lousy Moments of Love), sultry (Amor) or dark (The Total Stranger in the Garden).
Song of Black Max conjures the sinister coolness of Kurt Weill and Bertrolt Brecht’s Ballad of Mack the Knife while Waitin’ portrays the forlorn desolation of an abandoned lover with memorable phrases of simple eloquence.
Musica Viva Artistic Director Paul Kildea and Ian Dickson conceived the idea of placing a selection of the songs within a narrative structure portraying a wake held by a colourful assortment of friends for a scarcely missed libertine. Director Constantine Costi and writer Hilary Bell scripted and directed it, and Matthew Marshall added effective, stylish lighting.
Dowsley and Curtain’s performances of the individual songs were excellent. In Oh Close the Curtain, Dowsley stood at the back of the stage, holding attention with a cold stare while Curtain provided moulded refined detail. Yet, the narrative framework in some ways weighed the performance down, requiring Dowsley to navigate the virtuosic demands of creating multiple characters and then sing superbly.
There was a sense she had to work hard to warm the audience up and a simple song recital format with more casual spoken introductions might have worked as well. Despite the performance panache, Kildea and Dickson created the sort of party that you want to get away from as soon as it is decent to do so.
The National / Fleet Foxes
ICC Sydney Theatre, March 1
Reviewed by JAMES JENNINGS
★★★★½
Ohio alternative rockers The National and Seattle indie-folk group Fleet Foxes may not seem like the most obvious touring partners but similarities exist: both are quintets, both became buzz bands in the late 2000s and both aim for catharsis while mining life’s darker corners in their music.
Musically they couldn’t be more different, though, with Fleet Foxes’ exquisite multi-part harmonies and uplifting folk the lighter flip side to The National’s dark, brooding rock driven by lead singer Matt Berninger’s baritone.
Fleet Foxes charmed fans with their exquisite multi-part harmonies and uplifting folk.Credit: Rhett Wyman
The higher and thoroughly gorgeous vocals of Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold is the first sound heard via the a cappella Sun Giant, a perfect balm for end-of-week frayed nerves and a reminder of why Fleet Foxes’ gentle folk hit big in 2008.
While other early songs like White Winter Hymnal and Blue Ridge Mountains impress with their timeless beauty, there are plenty of other stunners, including Can I Believe You, Sunblind and Featherweight from the most recent Fleet Foxes album, 2020’s Shore.
While Pecknold, in jeans and baseball cap, is a low-key frontman, The National’s Matt Berninger is anything but. Sauntering onto the stage in a dapper suit with drink in hand, he receives a hero’s welcome from the crowd, many wearing T-shirts amusingly emblazoned with “Sad Dads”, the band’s suggested core demographic.
Although the disaffected lyrics and delivery of Berninger may paint him as perhaps not the warmest frontman, the reality couldn’t be further from the truth. Several times throughout the 2½-hour show he wanders through the crowd with the world’s longest mic cord, taking selfies, hugging fans and singing directly to their ecstatic faces.
The faithful are rewarded with songs from across the band’s 23-year career, a constant thread being the explosive guitar playing of twins Aaron and Bryce Dessner, who stand at opposite sides of the stage like a fretboard-shredding mirror image.
It’s a deeply giving performance: the audience are served up every song they likely want to hear, with Berninger a generous performer in the figurative and literal sense, even gifting his mic stand, drink and boots to awestruck fans toward the end of the show.
In a final act of breaking down the band/audience barrier, Berninger turns the mic around, leading the crowd through a moving singalong of Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks, creating the kind of special connection music fans all too rarely get to experience.
Jonas Brothers
Qudos Bank Arena, March 1
Reviewed by MILLIE MUROI
★★★
The Jonas Brothers should have seized the chance to sex up their first performance in Australia. Instead, it was a nostalgic saunter down memory lane that stretched just a little too long.
The concert boasted a setlist spanning five albums over 17 years: a feast for superfans treated to nearly 60 songs from the back catalogue. But when a third of those songs were crammed into five mash-ups, it began to feel like a rushed marathon.
Nick Jonas said Sydney had special significance for the band, and that their visit to Australia was long overdue. “We’ve written songs about this country, and this city is very important for us for many reasons,” he said.
The Jonas Brothers’ first visit to Australia was a nostalgic saunter down memory lane.Credit: Jordan Munns
The brothers shone at various points in the show, especially during performances of songs produced when they went their separate ways for several years between 2010 and 2019. Nick’s solo for his hit Jealous (2014) was emotive and vocally rousing, and for DNCE’s debut single Cake by the Ocean (2015) – produced when Joe Jonas was part of that band – all three brothers come together beautifully.
There was also an egalitarian appeal to the Jonas Brothers walking back and forth from the main stage to a smaller stage at the back of the venue, with those on the floor flowing back and forth with them to pursue the best view. Some of the pop-rock band’s most memorable renditions were on the smaller stage, including an intimate performance of When You Look Me in the Eyes (2008) and songs from the soundtrack of the television film Camp Rock from the same year, which featured the brothers.
Their stage presence waned throughout the concert, with a lack of creative choreography, energy and chemistry between the brothers. While they were heartthrobs, the lack of spectacle meant the brothers relied more heavily on their vocals and fans’ nostalgia.
With a tighter setlist, greater energy and a few more party tricks, the Jonas Brothers’ first Australian show would have left a lasting impression and fans wanting more.
The Chemical Brothers
Sydney Showground, February 29
Reviewed by MICHAEL RUFFLES
★★★½
I can tick “alien abduction” off my bucket list. Early in the Chemical Brothers’ bombastic Sydney show, a giant figure that might have been king of The X-Files’ little grey men zapped us all with lasers and beamed us up.
In a nearly two-hour close encounter of the chemical kind, Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands bombarded the crowd with a relentless barrage of big beats and showed why their groundbreaking hits have evolved into classics.
Beam me up: The striking visuals kept pace with the music.Credit: Brayden Smith
The natural starting point was Go: a pulsating, juddering firecracker that got the sweat flowing on the sweltering last day of summer.
Soon we were told to Get Yourself High before the aliens landed for MAH, which takes a version of Howard Beale’s famous “I’m mad as hell” rant and repeats it until it’s worn out.
What the Chemical Brothers lack in lyrical complexity they make up for in beats that hit you like a tonne of bricks. There is no better example than Hey Boy Hey Girl: the eight words are mere decoration to a dance track that, 25 years on (gulp), retains its entrancing, menacing quality.
The visuals were striking and had to be to match the music. Simons and Rowlands are little more than silhouettes ensconced in their banks of instruments and, like Kraftwerk before them, almost disappear under their own creation.
At times it was overwhelming. The first chance to take a breather came about 30 minutes in, with the relatively subdued Swoon. Later, Wide Open was given a welcome slow-burn approach, although the payoff was strangely subdued with Beck’s vocals warped into distortion.
Of the newer songs, the hypnotic Feels Like I Am Dreaming felt enhanced from the album version, by turns captivating and enjoyably confusing. The upbeat and poppy Live Again, however, was undercut by having the buzzsaw-like sounds turned up to 11. I needed something stronger than beer for that.
The most important chemical was probably H2O: it was a hot night for dancing, but long-time favourites Galvanize and Block Rocking Beats were as irresistible as ever, leaving the dance floor with a layer of sweat.
AGAPI & OTHER KINDS OF LOVE
Lennox Theatre, February 29
Reviewed by JOHN SHAND
★★★★
Luka Lesson takes us From Plato’s Symposium in 416 BC to riots on the streets of Athens today. He leads us through the seven categories of platonic love, ending with Agapi, the universal, most selfless form, and Martin Luther King’s typically lyrical and sagacious take: that, in part, Agapi is “creative, redemptive goodwill for all men” and “an overflowing love that seeks nothing in return”.
This would make for an ambitious play, even without Lesson devising most of it as rap. Yes, for nearly 70 minutes, he commands the stage while rapping about philosophy, history, politics and the manifold nature of love. Seldom is the delivery rapid-fire: the emphasis is not on the beats but on a unique epic narrative poem, delivered with a voice and presence capable of casting and holding a spell for most of the piece’s duration.
Luka Lesson’s voice and presence is capable of casting and holding a spell for most of the piece’s duration.Credit: James Humberstone
Composer James Humberstone’s shrewd underscore rises and falls with the dramatic contours while never obscuring the words, and three or four times resolves itself into actual songs, providing respite from the rapping’s verbal density. The music is realised by multi-instrumentalist Greta Kelly and May Lyn Chew (laptop and vocals – whose pretty voice is like porcelain on the point of cracking).
If anyone’s been out to lunch for two-and-a-half millennia, Plato’s Symposium is his fictional account of a lengthy, boozy debate between seven key characters about love’s guises, with Lesson zeroing in on Socrates, who tells of the wisdom on the subject imparted to him by Diotima.
Lesson intersperses rapped reductions of the Symposium with the passion of Sofia and Pavlos, the metaphorical fire of which is set against the Molotov cocktails and police baton charges in a modern-day Athens where Agapi is in short supply.
Lesson’s writing can be so beautiful that when, for instance, Sofia and Pavlos achieve climax, “their souls start to cross over from the limits of their skin”. Elsewhere, he tries to fly too close to the tempting illumination of universality, and his work’s hallmark lack of self-consciousness temporarily melts away.
There may also be another plane for his delivery to attain, where he dares relinquish the smooth undulations of his rapping and jolts us with an intensity of another order entirely. But such quibbles only highlight the ultimate potency of Lesson’s narrative and performative skills.
Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.