The collapse of energy trading giant Enron in 2001 was a bankruptcy of massive proportions, not just financially but also morally. The entire company was in thrall to its share price and would do anything to see it surge higher and higher.
The opening of Lucy Prebble’s play ENRON is a spectacle comprising the massed ranks of the Ensemble, with the front-of-stage energy traders chanting their mantras in homage to the supposedly free market.
However, Enron the company was based not on free-market principles but on impenetrable financial engineering. And Enron pursued profits with such tenacity that it would sooner see swaths of California plunged into blackouts rather than lose a single dollar in profit.
The play’s opening scene is reminiscent of the great Nazi rallies at Nuremberg and even the infamous Enron “E” logo takes on ominous swastika overtones. The cult of Enron was masterminded by president Jeffrey Skilling (played with creepy manipulative skill by Matt Young) in the service of George W Bush’s great friend, the chairman Ken “Kenny Boy” Lay (Peter Flett). Even the initially innocent and blundering chief financial officer Andy Fastow (Nick Curnow) becomes caught up in the web.
The monsters he and the rest of Enron have unleashed are symbolised, rather bizarrely, by several “raptors” in a cage behind his desk, the vicious dinosaurs scratching and hissing as he hatches his dodgy schemes. In other light-hearted moments among the financial chicanery, investment bank Lehman Brothers is portrayed by two simple young boys and auditors ARTHUR ANDERSEN as corporate yes men. On the other hand, some of the most callous dialogue is taken from Enron energy traders’ actual taped conversations.
Director Louise Fischer handles the play and the substantial cast well, and although the opening night performance at times appeared not to quite gel, it will undoubtedly acquire more polish as the play’s run progresses. Thanks to Fischer’s direction, the complicated financial shenanigans never become unclear and interest is maintained right until the end, when the whole shoddy corporate edifice collapses.
Louise Fischer’s production of ENRON opened at the New Theatre, 542 King Street, Newtown, corner of Alice Street, on Thursday 6th June and plays until Saturday 29th June, 2013.