Enron (Modern Plays)

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Hitchings 'Here is the blustering energy of capitalism, the illusion of being a delirious romp; and here too its narcissism and testosterone-fueled nastiness.' Enron is the dramatized retelling of the story of Enron, a company that... come to think of it I'm still not really sure what. I mean, I know that they were an energy and commodities trading company but I'm still not really sure what they did. They did something to do with creating shadow companies to make it appear as if they didn't have any debt? Look, the main problem with this play is that it requires you to already have an intimate knowledge of Enron, Jeffrey Skilling, and a whole lot more. I simply do not, and maybe that's my fault for not doing proper research before reading this play, but it does make a lot of what happens kind of confusing.

Enron premiered at the Chichester Festival Theatre (11 July – 29 August 2009), before London transfers to the Jerwood Downstairs at the Royal Court Theatre from 17 September to 7 November 2009 and then the Noël Coward Theatre from 16 January to 14 August 2010 (after a cast change on 8 May). [2] Directed by Rupert Goold with associate Sophie Hunter, [3] the cast featured Samuel West as Jeffrey Skilling, Tom Goodman-Hill as Andrew Fastow, Amanda Drew as Claudia Roe, and Tim Pigott-Smith as Ken Lay. [4] Enron won the 2009 Theatrical Management Association award for Best New Play and was also nominated for Best Performance in a Play (Samuel West). In the 2009 Evening Standard Theatre Awards, it won Best Director [12] and was nominated for Best Actor (for West) and Best Play (for Prebble). [13] [14]

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In April 2017 it was announced that Prebble was working on a new play, based on Bizet's Carmen [16] , from the new Bridge Theatre in London. [17] Lucy Prebble’s new play at the Royal Court Theatre charts the rise and fall of the Enron corporation, whose spectacular demise in 2001 provided a foretaste of last year’s financial crisis. Enron (stylised as ENRON) is a 2009 play by the British playwright Lucy Prebble, based on the Enron scandal. [1] Productions [ edit ] Enron at the Noël Coward Theatre in London's West End This moral message is compounded in Dr Faustus which would have contextually acted as a warning to the audience, as the 17th Century was a time of emerging individualism, where questions of `who made the world’ were rampant. However, this Marxist warning is issued through the archetypal characterisation of Faustus who mirrors Skillings preoccupation with the `selfish gene’, in the phrase `I am wanton and lascivious’. The combination of the first person pronoun, which shown his selfishness, combined with the adjective `wanton’ and `lascivious’ which connotate lust, suggest that Faustus is not equipped with the necessary instincts to wield power equal to that `of a deity’.

Wiseman, Andreas (28 November 2019). " 'Succession' Scribe Lucy Prebble Talks Potential Season 3 Storyline, A Horror Project Inspired By A Cult Classic & What The Wellcome Fellowship Means To Her". Deadline . Retrieved 8 October 2023. I was born in 1980 at the beginning of the games boom. I'm glad that my library had a digital recording of the production when it ran in LA because even though I would have enjoyed it if I read the script, I don't think I would have appreciated it more were it not for the recording to know how it was played out. It was definitely a unique way of telling a real live event and it definitely got the point across about how this company ended up where it ended up. In recent times, a rash of financial world-based stories has cropped up, The Wolf of Wall Street being the first that comes to mind. I've yet to experience much else in the genre, but what strikes me most about Enron (the play) is how . . . different the characters therein think. And, if nothing else, it's a valuable piece of theatre for revealing the inner machinations of an industry that the average Joe knows little about.The centrepiece of Hampstead Theatre's autumn New Writing Festival will be the playwright's first full length work, What Fatima Did ..., about a Muslim girl returning to school after the summer holidays. a b Edwardes, Jane. "The Critics' Circle Theatre Awards 2012" criticscircle.org.uk, 16 January 2013 Although their approaches differ, Hare and Prebble agree on many points. One is that difficulty of explaining the technicalities of money; and interestingly, both separately pay tribute to Michael Frayn as a writer capable of clarifying complex systems. Prebble says he makes "recondite facts accessible". Hare concurs. "You wouldn't have thought that an audience could understand nuclear physics, or the intricacies of postwar German politics until Frayn wrote Copenhagen and Democracy." Both playwrights think money is a subject that has been unjustly ignored by modern theatre. Clement, Olivia. "David Cromer Sets Cast for Lucy Prebble's 'The Effect' Off-Broadway" playbill.com, 28 January 2016 This one doesn’t seem as entirely resistant to cliché as my favourite Prebble play, The Effect – the scenes in the third act featuring the prostitute and the woman who’s lost her savings seeming oddly on-the-nose – but judging a theatrical production by its script is like judging an album by reading the lyrics booklet, so it may play differently in person.

Initially I was worried that their powerhouse production was in danger of overwhelming Prebble’s text through overkill. The first half, in which you gradually get to know the main players, blurred some of the narrative issues through an excess of stage business and visual affects. At times it almost appeared that Goold had lost confidence in the text and was impelled to gussy up the exposition in case the audience grew bored with its boardroom politics. Prebble's play exists, however, both as a text and performance. Hare's The Power of Yes is even now still being created. But, although Hare is reluctant to discuss it in detail, his purpose is clearly different from Prebble's. She has written razzle-dazzle entertainment, albeit one that went through 17 drafts; Hare is using documentary techniques to explore the crisis more broadly. We ask that you do not attend if you feel unwell or have any symptoms of COVID-19. View our COVID-19 Audience FAQs.

It’s funny,” she says, reflecting on her time on the show, which she also executive-produced, “by the end we were staying in these locations among the very, very rich, and yes, we’re observing, it’s satire, but at the end of the day, we’re still on a yacht, we’re still on Lake Como …” His unknowing partner-in-crime, Andy Fastow, is portrayed by the fantastic Michael Olatunji, whose sycophantic nature is expertly conveyed as he inadvertently brings about the company’s demise. Hugo Gregg presents the amicable face of the company as CEO and chairman, Ken Lay, whose tendency toward the truth acts as an ironic mode of sugarcoating the company’s shadowy secrets – he plays the role of the friendly yet imposing Texan incredibly convincingly. The three executives who featured most prominently in Enron’s collapse in 2001 were Ken Lay, Enron’s chairman (Tim Piggott-Smith), Jeffrey Skilling, the company’s charismatic chief executive (Samuel West), and Andrew Fastow, its chief financial officer (Tom Goodman- Hill) who, (in this version of the story, at any rate) single-handedly was responsible for devising the scandal that ultimately ruined the company as well as the lives of most of its employees. On the distaff side, the play features a woman called Claudia Roe (Amanda Drew) ‘the fourteenth most powerful woman in the world’ who was also Skilling’s occasional sexual bit on the side and an unsuccesful contender for his job. After her hit with Enron, Lucy Prebble turns to medicine and the mind - to great effect ... The Effect is a four-hander that hopscotches confidently across themes of neurology, psychopharmacology, depression, love and guilt ... The Effect moves you to thought, sometimes to strong feeling.” – Loveridge, Lizzie. "A CurtainUp London Review. 'The Sugar Syndrome' " CurtainUp, 10 October 2003. Retrieved 5 January 2009

Though it happened in my lifetime, I knew next to nothing about the Enron scandal before reading this play. And AFTER reading this play, I'm not sure to what extent I know the Enron scandal, but I certainly know more at the end than when I started. Cover -- ENRON -- Act One -- Scene One -- Scene Two -- Scene Three -- Scene Four -- Scene Five -- Scene Six -- Scene Seven -- Scene Eight -- Scene Nine -- Act Two -- Scene One -- Scene Two -- Scene Three -- Scene Four -- Scene Five -- Scene Six -- Scene Seven -- Scene Eight -- Scene Nine -- Scene Ten -- Act Three -- Scene One -- Scene Two -- Scene Three -- Scene Four -- Scene Five -- Scene Six deeply human, with the odd jolt of piercing humour. The Effect confirms her as one of the most intelligent voices in British theatre.” – Lucy Prebble's A VERY EXPENSIVE POISON wins Best New Play at the Critics' Circle awards". Knight Hall Agency. 12 February 2020.The second, written in 2005 but never staged, followed a documentary crew filming a porn star attempting to break a world record involving a certain number of sexual acts within a limited time.“It was an attempt to look at our own voyeurism, and what is ‘acceptable’”, says Prebble. “If pornography is framed within an academic liberal framework, it’s fine, but if it’s just pornography, then it’s not.” The only difference between me and the people judging me is they weren't smart enough to do what we did.' Andreas Wiseman (28 November 2019). " Succession Scribe Lucy Prebble Talks Potential Season 3 Storyline, A Horror Project Inspired By A Cult Classic & What The Wellcome Fellowship Means To Her". Deadline. A large part of the successful conveying of director Neve Kennedy’s vision can be attributed to the show’s atmosphere and physical presence. The set is, at first, quite unassuming, consisting of blank walls and an imposing staircase leading to the throne-like chair which acts as a Marxist reminder of the hierarchies of power that undercut the plot.