THE TONY AWARD®-WINNING BEST PLAY RETURNS TO LONDON
The landmark National Theatre and Neal Street production of The Lehman Trilogy, directed by Academy Award®, Tony Award®, and Golden Globe winner Sam Mendes, returns to the Gillian Lynne Theatre for a strictly limited encore season this autumn. Hailed by The New York Times as 'a genuinely epic production', The Lehman Trilogy is a sweeping story of a family spanning generations and a company that changed the world.
John Heffernan, Aaron Krohn and Howard W. Overshown bring their ‘virtuosic performances’(The Mercury News) to London, following a critically acclaimed run in San Francisco, playing the Lehman brothers, their sons and grandsons in this thrilling ‘tour de force of acting talent.’(KQED Radio)
On a cold September morning in 1844, a young man from Bavaria stands on a New York dockside dreaming of a new life in the new world. He is joined by his two brothers, and an American epic begins. 163 years later, the firm they establish - Lehman Brothers - spectacularly collapses into bankruptcy, triggering the largest financial crisis in history.
__Assisted Perfromances:__
Captioned: Monday 28th October 7pm and Saturday 7th December 1pm.
Audio described: Saturday 30th November 1pm and Friday 3rd January 7pm.
BSL: Saturday 16th November 1pm.
Heffernan brings a robust delicacy to characters including the second-generation prodigy Philip, who leads the firm’s 20th-century innovations with manipulating money. Krohn is imposingly straitlaced or beguilingly clownish. Overshown is sonorous, bearish or impish as needed. “No one solos and everyone solos,” as the jazz band Weather Report once said of themselves. They each make you think that it is a doddle dishing out thousands of words on a revolving glass and steel platform (designed by Es Devlin) in front of a vast monochrome cyclorama that evokes Manhattan through the decades (videos by Luke Halls).
One of the great successes of the production is just how pared-back it is. The story could easily have leant into a huge cast and multiple sets, but the three actors remain in the same costumes, within the same set throughout, accompanied by a solo piano. The story and direction remains the same, but it is always fascinating to see how different actors create their own characters. This trio of Anglo-American actors are simply stellar, making the execution of all their parts look effortless.
2018 | West End |
Original West End Production West End |
2019 | Off-Broadway |
Park Avenue Armory North American Premiere Off-Broadway |
2021 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
2023 | West End |
West End |
West End |
West End |
Videos