ENRON
Noel Coward Theatre, St Martin's Lane, WC2
BOOM! Traders roar as they begin their warlike dance on energy darling Enron's trading floor.
Lucy Preeble's excellent play sets up Enron - America's most innovative company for six year's running - as its tragic hero, chartings its meteoric rise to the top of the markets in the 1990s and plummet into corporate bankruptcy just after 9/11.
A modern morality tale about the power of the free market in the mould of a Shakespearean tragedy, it succinctly explains the smoke and mirrors financial trickery that rocketed Enron to a value of $60billion at its peak.
And ethical issues around by the company's eventual collapse are completely of the moment - how can a billion dollar company evaporate into thin air at the drop of a hat. Feeling twitchy, investment banks?
Its staging, particularly the superb lighting, is nothing short of wizardry. A throbbing trading screen projected onto the actors sees them morph into the markets their alter-egos control and the recreation of the twin towers' collapse packs the greatest emotional punch of the play.
Samuel West was born to be the brilliant but flawed Enron president Jeffrey Skilling. He has a Superman like ability to be both geek and master of the universe and reveals with great humanity the greed and unrestrained ambition that brings down the company and with it the American dream.
Claudia Roe as Amanda Drew, his ousted nemesis, and Tim Pigott-Smith as golf-loving CEO and friend of presidents, are both compelling. Go see it, see it soon. This is scintillating theatre and a true story of our times. - EMMA YOULE
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