“The Lehman Trilogy is a three-act play by Italian novelist and playwright Stefano Massini. It follows the lives of three immigrant brothers from when they arrive in America and found an investment firm/brokerage  through to the collapse of the company in 2008.”

As a playwright and equities market participant I should have made time to see Lehman Brothers earlier. I think logistics and its length had put me off. 

I’m glad I went. In part because I certainly feel there is room for more plays about financial markets. 

My arguments would be that financial markets as a human construct reflect much and enable much  of what human society does… the good, the bad,  the ugly; the sublime, the silly, the pointless and that markets are powered by people and people are all of that. 

Dramaturgically, it was insightful to observe that the vast amounts of expositional story telling - performed well written sharply - was often gripping to many. 

(Not all, as some were switched off; and not at all moments - perhaps the difficulty of the story). 

In many ways, the direct to audience story telling is a technique I use in both my latest shows - and stand up comedy uses it as its major technique - but I’ve sometimes been cautious as to how well it will hold. 

I’m now convinced that good writing and performance can hold it well. 

The live music provided emotional and dramatic counter point.  I found those aspects of the  theatre instructive.  (Although I have minor quibbles with some aspects of  the performative story telling; a little too much one note shouting in places; not enough use of the quiet). 

In terms of finance and economic history, or even the cultural history of persons then I  learned new things in the first act about immigration, Jewish culture, slavery, cotton and the civil war.  I could even draw some links even when there were not overt references. 

You’d still learn more from a history book if the time or on economic history by listening to my podcast with, for instance, Mark Koyama (!). 

These ideas weakened in act two and were very slim in the last act. 

The play tackles the financialization (money!)  of real goods (eg cotton!) with a passage about words which hints of the truth. 

The Lehman brothers trading in the words of cotton.  There is no cotton but the word cotton. There is no coffee but the word coffee. 

This abstraction is true and not true on many levels and I liked it.  Mathematics is a language that seems to describe properties of how we perceive the real world. Mathematics is not the real world. A contract on coffee is not coffee, but it represents how coffee will trade. 

Financial market contracts or the words between men - are a human language construct that allows the movement, trade and manufacture of real goods like cotton to be turned into shirts - which people can buy for a promise (a money note) - to wear to keep them warm or to signal their desirability. 

They are a language of trust. They are not - mostly - a description of the “real world”. 

But I bring my views to that. The play touched only lightly on what financialisation of goods might mean and how it comes about. 

That was even weaker in the third act suggesting that computer magic - buying numbers low and selling numbers high - was at the heart of trading - the universal language of computers.  

I think you could argue this - I would not buy this but there could be an element of truth that trading is this human construct - but the play did not - more stating it as the truth of what these financial players were doing. 

I was disappointed but heartened to find this lacuna - because it means there is still a play for me to write.

The other disappointment in particular into act 3 is the increasingly perfunctory treatment of the personality and characters. 

I think liberties with the timelines for dramatic effect would be reasonable. Robert - Bobby - Lehman died in 1969  and wasn’t dancing, right to the end of Lehman Bros.

The most famous dancing metaphor was given by Citigroup CEO/Chair, Chuck Prince around 2007. 

"As long as the music is playing, you've got to get up and dance. We're still dancing."

One small example on the characters:  

Pete Peterson was given one short main scene - one that was mean to represent an internal political battles. 

But Peterson went on into government and then on to found one of the biggest and most influential private equity firm in the world today.  He became a billionaire and a major billionaire philanthropist- in that other grand graduation. 

the strong links between finance and politics - foreshadowed by Herbert Lehman in the 1930s - and even before in the links of the civil war, north and south - New York - Alabama - 

were absent into Act 3 - 

If people think this is the modern day story of finance - with politics absent - then people are missing  a major piece of the stroy.

The play makes the arguments in Act 2 that banks were going to fail before the government would step in to help the stronger remaining banks to survive.  This was in 1929

This same echo happened in 2008 

Some of the players were the same - Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs -

Similarly the politicians involved - were surrounded by ex-finance people.  Look them up.

There would have been a very true and lovely ellipsis pattern to this history if it had been more fully explored. 

Dick Fuld and many of the 2008 players are still alive so perhaps that makes it harder.

Still for someone who had lived this history and see within it the echoes of a longer arc of history (and even echoes with  today's bank runs) it was unsatisfactory.

That said, much of the play is narrated in a gripping fashion and it does bring some character to a world which really does bring the money for the rest of the world to function.  So I think it’s recommended viewing.