Investment bank collapse gets the epic saga treatment at DCPA

The Brothers Lehman of Rimpar, Bavaria, Montgomery, Alabama and New York, New York. From left: actors Tasso Feldman, Sasha Roiz and Matthew Boston. While the arc of history may bend toward justice — and at times, that “may” feels mighty wobbly — the cadence of history visits catastrophe on so many in the meantime. Italian playwright Stefano Massini’s “The Lehman Trilogy,” about the siblings who founded the Lehman Brothers investment bank, is epic in length and Homeric sensibility.

The play begins with an infamous end. Audio can be heard of news reports on the demise of the Lehman Brothers investment house; a janitor with a trash bin makes his way across the stage. It is September 2008. Along with the collapse of Lehman came the buying of the equally market-battered Merrill Lynch by Bank of America. The one-two punches ushered in the Great Recession.

Henry is followed to America by Emanuel . Henry has moved to and opened a shop in Montgomery, Ala. Younger sibling Mayer , who has been given the nickname Spud by the slightly bullying Emanuel, arrives. He was sent, he tells us, to act as the peacekeeper, the negotiator between “The Arm” and “The Head” .

By the end of Act I, two of the brothers will join up in New York City. Henry will be mourned with the same rituals he would have been honored with had he died in Bavaria: Emanuel and Mayer sit shiva. The shop stays closed. By the end of Act II, Black Thursday has just happened, and stockbroker suicides are mounting. Even so, Lehman Brothers is still standing but changes again.

This is among the scenes that have given rise to concerns about the play being anti-Semitic, since the trope of the Jewish banker has been a staple of conspiratorial anti-Semitism. Can a play that so well celebrates the Lehmans, their Judaism and their contribution to the building of America also be anti-Semitic? My answer is “yes” but that’s something for you to decide, if you go. And you should. For all its moral lacunae, it is often exquisite and utterly thought-provoking.

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