The Wandering Foodie

The ornate theatre was crowded, but not stuffy. It had been over two years since I last sat in a seat on Broadway – long before the pandemic – and the seats were about as tight as I remembered.

Tonight’s play is The Lehman Trilogy, a play I’d heard about a few years back on the radio, now playing on Broadway. It traces the 160-year history of the infamous Lehman Brothers, known to the world as the catalyst of the 2008 financial crisis.

Though the over century-and-a-half story is crammed into only three hours (yes, three hours), it doesn’t take long for me to be enraptured in the tale, from the arrival of the Lehmans from Bavaria to their slave holdings and cotton sales business in Alabama. The tale moves north as the Lehmans become New York bankers, raking in wealth trading on money, making money on money… money, money, money, money, money, money.

The audience is lulled to sleep watching this lucrative lifestyle of Wall Street…until they are literally jolted awake by the sounds of gunshots as Wall Street bankers commit suicide on Black Thursday.

The Lehmans built their empire on the great American sin of slavery and then exploited the culture and mindset of American finance and capitalism to create a complex house of cards – an intricate system of financial tools that most people didn’t understand – that came crumbling down in the fall of 2008.

It is at once a thrilling, yet sobering, thought-provoking story. All acted and performed skillfully by Adrian Lester, Simon Russell Beale, and (my fav) Adam Godley.

It was worth the cost of admission.

It was worth the tight seats.

It was worth the $24 cocktail at intermission (yes you read right, but at least I got to keep the cup).

It was worth the couple next to me, who seemed annoying at first talking and carrying on, but with whom I ended up enjoying some brief, yet pleasant conversation about the play.

It’s good to be back on Broadway.