Enron - the Spring 2015 MainStage Play

Enron - the Spring 2015 MainStage Play

Enron by Lucy Prebble

Three blind mice wander across the stage while a few Texas businessmen determine the financial fate of the nation. A lawyer with a ventriloquist dummy delivers disclaimers to the audience while ferocious velociraptors lurk in the darkness... This is the world of Enron by Lucy Prebble, a modern day morality play which charts the notorious rise and fall of Enron, the company that caused one of the most infamous financial scandals in global history. A blend of documentary-style realism, savage comedy, magical absurdism and epic spectacle worthy of a Greek Tragedy, Enron is a narrative of greed and loss that casts a new light on the financial turmoil in which the world finds itself today. 

What the critics said when the play premiered in 2009 (London) and 2010 (New York):

"'We're going to put it together and sell it to you as truth.' That opening description by a lawyer in ENRON is deliciously double-edged. Not only is he articulating the company's secret attitude to business ethics, he's also encapsulating playwright Lucy Prebble's fearlessly imaginative approach…watching 'the corporate crime that defined the end of the twentieth century' isn't just instructive, it's a gloriously guilty pleasure…a cross between an insightful analysis and a savage satire of high capitalism as moral vacuum." —Variety.

"One of those rare works that crystallises the mood of its age. What needs stressing equally strongly is that it is also hugely entertaining—and accessible even to dunderheads like me who wouldn't know a financial instrument from an instrument of torture, though they currently seem to be much the same thing…She also knows how to construct a play, moving from savage black comedy to something approaching, classical tragedy as Jeffrey Skilling, the company's ruthless and brilliant CEO who was sentenced to twenty-four years in jail on fraud and conspiracy charges, reaps what his own hubris has sown." —Telegraph (UK).

"A darkly exhilarating portrait of hypertrophied capitalism and a society that allows faith-based fiscal systems to ravage the body economic…a sharp-witted and rollicking business thriller to dazzle the eye and tickle the brain…Prebble's characters are deliciously vital and self-aware." —Time Out NY.

Our special guest director is Talya Klein, an award-winning director, actor, writer, and producer, whose work has been seen in London, New York, Los Angeles, and all over the US. Directing credits include: Grounded by George Brant (Manbites Dog Theater, NC), As You LIke It (The Here & Now, VT), Born This Way (BCC Rep, MA), Parade, All The Things You Are, Three Sisters, and Aphra Behn's The Rover (Brown/Trinity MFA Program), We Can Rebuild Him (Brown University Mainstage/Brownbrokers), Red Noses by Peter Barnes and Black Snow by Mikhail Bulgagov (Kensington Drama Company, London), the American Premiere of Samuel Adamson's Clocks and Whistles (Origin Theatre Company, NYC), and the West Coast Premiere of Rinne Groff's Orange Lemon Egg Canary. In addition, Talya has worked on staff or assistant directed at The National Theatre, The Royal Shakespeare Company, Pasadena Playhouse, Trinity Repertory Company, The Culture Project, Manhattan Theatre Club, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Weston Playhouse and the Public Theater. Talya received her BA in Theatre and Social Struggle from Duke University. During her time there, she was awarded a Benenson Award, the Alex Cohen Award, the Dasha Epstein Playwriting Award, and named one of nine local "Artists to Watch in the New Millenium" by the Raleigh News & Observer. Talya earned her MFA in Directing in the Brown University/Trinity Rep MFA Program and is the founder of The Here & Now, a company which produces one-off, site-specific theatrical events. Recently she was the Project Manager for The Civilians, an investigative theater company in NYC. She produced/edited/directed their cabaret: Let Me Ascertain You: Holy Matrimony! at The Public Theater, the podcast of which can be downloaded on iTunes. Talya is a member of the Lincoln Center Directors' Lab and the Directors' Lab West.