Review Roundup: Did THE LEHMAN TRILOGY Dazzle the West End Again?

The landmark National Theatre and Neal Street production of The Lehman Trilogy, directed by Academy Award, Tony Award, and Golden Globe winner Sam Mendes, has returned to the Gillian Lynne Theatre for a strictly limited encore season this autumn. Hailed by The New York Times as 'a genuinely epic production', The Lehman Trilogy is a sweeping story of a family spanning generations and a company that changed the world.

John Heffernan, Aaron Krohn and Howard W. Overshown bring their ‘virtuosic performances’(The Mercury News) to London, following a critically acclaimed run in San Francisco.

What did the critics think?

Photo Credit: Mark Douet

Aliya Al-Hassan, BroadwayWorld: One of the great successes of the production is just how pared-back it is. The story could easily have leant into a huge cast and multiple sets, but the three actors remain in the same costumes, within the same set throughout, accompanied by a solo piano. The story and direction remains the same, but it is always fascinating to see how different actors create their own characters. This trio of Anglo-American actors are simply stellar, making the execution of all their parts look effortless.

Dominic Maxwell, The Times: Heffernan brings a robust delicacy to characters including the second-generation prodigy Philip, who leads the firm’s 20th-century innovations with manipulating money. Krohn is imposingly straitlaced or beguilingly clownish. Overshown is sonorous, bearish or impish as needed. “No one solos and everyone solos,” as the jazz band Weather Report once said of themselves. They each make you think that it is a doddle dishing out thousands of words on a revolving glass and steel platform (designed by Es Devlin) in front of a vast monochrome cyclorama that evokes Manhattan through the decades (videos by Luke Halls).

Anya Ryan, London Theatre: Despite the drama, the production has a simplicity to it and flows like a lullaby. Accompanied throughout by Cat Beveridge on piano, it sometimes has the feel of a silent film. Staged on Es Devlin’s marvellous glass box set that houses a boardroom cluttered with packing boxes and office chairs and turns slowly on its axis, it is a wonder to behold.

Ke Meng, Theatre Weekly: As a more intimate theatrical space, Gillian Lynne theatre fully waves the magic of Es Devlin’s rotating Wall Street office and Sam Mendes’s epic directorial hands: Philip’s (Heffernan) wisdom and “strategy” presented through the three-card monte, Bobbie’s (Krohn) epic dance into his grave, and the contrasting scene where Overshown plays several bankers’ suicides when Bobbie was courting the once-divorced Ruth. Cat Beveridge’s piano triumphs not simply as the soundscape, but as a symbol of New York as the magical music box, easily stirring your emotion.

Average Rating: 90.0%