Enron, a play by Lucy Prebble about the ballooning and collapsing of the energy giant's thirty-billion dollar, fraudulent fiasco opened and closed quickly in New York, but it's been running successfully in London for some time. I guess it was more fun for the British to see that debacle than the Americans.
In its UK incarnation, I found the play uninteresting early on, but director Rupert Goold and choreographer Scott Ambler then give us an exciting number with lights, projections and song. The leads, Corey Johnson as the chief villain Jeffrey Skilling, Paul Chahidi as his "grand vizier" Andy Fastow, Sara Stewart as mover and shaker Claudia Roe and Clive Francis as the patriarch Ken Lay, are all first rate. Still, though I did learn a lot about the machinations that went on, I found a lot of the talk boring. The whoop-dee-doo of the ensemble, for me, saves the show-- in Act 2 the greedy become raptors, and there is an exciting number with light sabers.
Design by Anthony Ward is terrific, lighting by Mark Henderson is clear and excellent. So I was engaged by the theatrical elements, which increased in Act Two, and my friend who came with me, who is a painter and a writer about baseball, loved the whole show, thought it important that everyone see it to understand what went on, and hoped it would have a long, long run. I'm glad I saw it (as a totality is was theatrical fun), I'm glad the perpetrators are in jail, and I'm glad I'm poor and have no investments to lose.
