| ENRON | |
|---|---|
Poster for the Broadway production |
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| Written by | Lucy Prebble |
| Characters | Claudia Roe Kenneth Lay Jeffrey Skilling Andy Fastow |
| Date premiered | 17 September 2009 |
| Place premiered | Festival Theatre, Chichester, United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| Subject | The Enron scandal |
| Setting | USA, 1992-2001 |
| Official site | |
| IBDB profile | |
ENRON is a 2009 play by the British playwright Lucy Prebble, based on the Enron scandal.[1]
Contents |
ENRON premiered at the Chichester Festival Theatre (11 July - 29 August 2009), before London transfers to the Jerwood Downstairs at the Royal Court Theatre from 17 September to 7 November 2009 and then the Noel Coward Theatre from 16 January to 14 August 2010 (after a cast change on 8 May).[2] Directed by Rupert Goold, the cast featured Samuel West as Jeffrey Skilling, Amanda Drew as Claudia Roe, and Tim Pigott-Smith as Ken Lay.[3]
ENRON premiered on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre on April 8, 2010 in previews, with the official opening on April 27. Directed by Rupert Goold, the scenic and costume design was by Anthony Ward, lighting by Mark Henderson, music and sound by Adam Cork, video and projection by Jon Driscoll and movement by Scott Ambler. Gregory Itzin starred as Kenneth Lay with Norbert Leo Butz as Jeffrey Skilling, Marin Mazzie as Claudia Roe, and Stephen Kunken as Andrew Fastow.[4] The Broadway production of ENRON closed on May 9, 2010;[5] it lasted just over a month. The Guardian's critic Michael Billington speculated that it was The New York Times' "hostile" review that contributed to its premature closer.[6] He also stated its failure to earn nominations at the Tony Awards in major categories was its "kiss of death".[6]
ENRON was premiered in Reykjavik City Theatre in September 2010, in Dublin as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival in October 2010 and in Helsinki (Helsinki City Theatre) in November 2010.
Tim Walker, the Sunday Telegraph critic, gave it five stars, drawing parallels with the plot to that of King Lear. "While it isn't done any more to say this in the financial pages, I say it here with conviction: Enron is a strong buy," he wrote.[7][8] [9]
In The New York Times review of the Broadway production, Ben Brantley wrote, contrary to some other critics, "even with a well-drilled cast that includes bright Broadway headliners like Norbert Leo Butz and Marin Mazzie, the realization sets in early that this British-born exploration of smoke-and-mirror financial practices isn’t much more than smoke and mirrors itself. Enron is fast-paced, flamboyant and, despite the head-clogging intricacy of its business mathematics, lucid to the point of simple-mindedness. But as was true of the company of this play’s title, the energy generated here often feels factitious, all show (or show and tell) and little substance."[10]
Michael Billington, critic for The Guardian, dubbed Brantley's comments an "obtuse and hostile review",[6] stating that "ENRON's fate was sealed the moment Brantley's review appeared [...] As a fellow critic, I respect Brantley's right to his opinion, what is dismaying is his failure to see what Prebble and Goold were up to [...] But no serious play on Broadway can survive a withering attack from The New York Times, which carries the force of a papal indictment".[6]
| Character | London | New York |
|---|---|---|
| Claudia Roe | Amanda Drew | Marin Mazzie |
| Kenneth Lay | Tim Pigott-Smith | Gregory Itzin |
| Jeffrey Skilling | Samuel West | Norbert Leo Butz |
| Andy Fastow | Tom Goodman-Hill | Stephen Kunken |
| Gayle Davenport | Gillian Budd | |
| Lehman Brothers | Peter Caulfield / Tom Godwin |
|
| Security Officer | Howard Charles | |
| Irene Gant | Susannah Fellows | |
| Arthur Andersen | Stephen Fewell | |
| Senator | Orion Lee | Tom Nelis |
| Elise Da Luca | Eleanor Matsuura | |
| Trader | Ashley Rolfe | |
| Lawyer | Trevor White |
ENRON won the 2009 Theatrical Management Association award for Best New Play and was also nominated for Best Performance in a Play (Samuel West). In the 2009 Evening Standard Theatre Awards, it won Best Director[11] and was nominated for Best Actor (for West) and Best Play (for Prebble).[12][13] The work received a Tony award nomination for "Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre".[14]