Firdous Bamji and Joshua David Robinson in "The Lehman Trilogy." Photo by T. Charles Erickson.
The Repertory Theater of St. Louis is kicking off the 2023-2024 season this week with a Tony Award–winning work that tackles two centuries of dream chasing and drama within one groundbreaking family.
The Leman Trilogy, on stage September 5–24 at the Loretto-Hilton Center, is an ambitious start to the Rep’s season. The three-act play clocks in at just under three and a half hours with two intermissions and sees dozens of characters brought to life by just three actors as it tracks the rise and fall of the Lehman family, whose business grew to incredible heights before the Lehman Brothers financial services firm collapsed in 2008.
Director Carey Perloff, the longtime artistic director of the American Conservatory Theater, has brought her own unique vision to the production, including adding an on-stage musician to the mix to help root scenes in their various times and places.
“Doing The Lehman Trilogy to open this season is a symbol of everything all of us who are in the field of live theater are trying to do, which is to create something on stage that is epic and alive and theatrical and nuanced and complicated,” says Perloff. “The kind of work that you could not sit home alone on your couch and watch on Netflix.”
The Lehman Trilogy is uniquely theatrical. The three stars, Firdous Bamji, Joshua David Robinson, and Scott Wentworth, enter the narrative as Mayer, Emanuel, and Henry Lehman, three Jewish brothers from Bavaria whose pursuit of the American Dream sets their family up for both success and eventual notorious failure. While they portray other characters throughout the play, they never truly leave the original brothers behind.
“It’s like a Shakespeare play,” says Perloff. “It’s pure theater. It’s three men who never change their costumes. They’re in 19th-century black frock coats, but they transform into everything—all the women, all the children, all the different branches of the family…It’s completely transformative in a way only actors can do, just in their bodies and voices. I think, for an audience, there’s something really delightful about that.”
While the fate of the Lehman Brothers and their business is well-documented history—and still looms in the memories of those affected by the 2008 financial crisis—Perloff says that The Lehman Trilogy has a Titanic-like effect on audiences. While they know exactly where the story is going, they want to see exactly how it all fell apart.
“We’re fascinated by it, because we keep thinking, What did we do wrong? Could we have done something different? How are we doing with these kinds of things now?” says Perloff. “All of these questions really resonate.”
The Lehman Trilogy runs September 5–24 at the Loretto Hilton Center. For tickets and more information, visit repstl.org.
