Lehman Trilogy

When economy was no longer linked to real production, we stepped on the dangerous ground of financial engineering, an ideal habitat for thimble riggers, who are capable of swindling more and more money without worrying about the consequences of their ambition. The Lehman, a saga of Jewish bankers from Bavaria, were masters of this questionable art, leading them to make one of the world’s greatest fortunes. However, 2007 marked the collapse of their empire, which had been supported by the fragile foundations of speculation, causing a financial disaster from which we have not yet recovered. Stefano Massini, one of today’s best Italian playwrights and the current director of the Piccolo Teatro di Milano, uses his monumental Lehman Trilogy to narrate the rise and fall of this lineage of entrepreneurs (or mess makers). Starting out as cotton traders, we watch how them devise a plan to emerge unscathed from predicaments as delicate as the American Civil War, the Wall Street Crash of 1929, World War II, etc. Peris-Mencheta takes us on this journey with six actors who act, dance, sing... A fast-paced theatrical feast, which documents the greed that led to the collapse.