| Enron | |
|---|---|
 Poster for the Broadway production | |
| Written by | Lucy Prebble |
| Characters | Claudia Roe Kenneth Lay Jeffrey Skilling Andy Fastow |
| Date premiered | 17 September 2009 |
| Place premiered | Festival Theatre, Chichester, United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| Subject | The Enron scandal |
| Setting | USA, 1992–2001 |
| Official site | |
Enron (stylised as ENRON) is a 2009 play by the British playwright Lucy Prebble, based on the Enron scandal. [1]
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 premiered on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre on 8 April 2010 in previews, with the official opening on 27 April. Directed by Rupert Goold with associate Sophie Hunter, the scenic and costume design was by Anthony Ward, lighting by Mark Henderson, music and sound by Adam Cork, video and projection by Jon Driscoll and movement by Scott Ambler. Gregory Itzin starred as Kenneth Lay with Norbert Leo Butz as Jeffrey Skilling, Marin Mazzie as Claudia Roe, and Stephen Kunken as Andrew Fastow. [5] The Broadway production of Enron closed on 9 May 2010; [6] it lasted just over a month. The Guardian 's critic Michael Billington speculated that it was The New York Times ' "hostile" review that contributed to its premature closure. [7] He also stated its failure to earn nominations at the Tony Awards in major categories was its "kiss of death". [7]
Enron was premiered in Reykjavik City Theatre in September 2010, in Dublin as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival in October 2010 and in Helsinki (Helsinki City Theatre) in November 2010.
The play concerns the financial scandal and collapse of Enron, the American energy corporation, based in Texas. Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling and his boss Kenneth Lay are shown, as well as Skilling's protégé Andy Fastow, who rises to become the chief financial officer.
A lawyer tells the audience about world-changing. We then see a party to celebrate the introduction of mark-to-market accounting, where Andy Fastow is made fun of by other employees for wanting to go speak to Skilling, by whom he is promptly ignored. Claudia Roe (a fictional character) accompanies Ken Lay in his rounds of meeting employees. Skilling explains the new accounting system to the employees. Afterwards, Skilling and Roe have sex, before it is revealed Roe is slated to become the new president and Skilling is leaving his wife, for which Roe feels guilty. Their misuse of the company jet is also revealed. Skilling tells Roe about his ideas for the company. Skilling and Roe tell Lay about their plans for the company, before Lay selects Skilling to be the new president. Skilling envisages a modern company that deals only in numbers, while Roe wants to continue with Enron's current path. A trading floor is established, and the traders physically mock and berate Fastow when he tries to get some numbers from them, leading to Fastow messing up Skilling's Electricity plans. We also learn about Skilling congratulating a trader for losing multiple millions of dollars. In a split scene, Roe complains about Skilling's policy of cutting the bottom ten percent of workers, and convinces Lay to open a power plant in India. Meanwhile, Skilling uses a treadmill to punish Fastow, telling him about the Darwinian way he is running the company, before moving Fastow to finance. Analysts from major banks rate the stock to be a strong buy, and Skilling realises that he has complete control over the price. They hit a $50 stock price, before Lay talks about playing golf with the President, to try and get electricity deregulated, while also using the jet to visit family. Skilling talks to his daughter about counting, revealing a motif of counting money. Roe reveals her doubts about the stock price, while affirming her standing behind Skilling. She reveals a Harvard Business School professor wants to use Enron as a case study, and that her division is made fun of in Skilling's biker weekends. Skilling complains about Roe going over his head for the power plant, but then they see that Enron is rated at $60billion dollars. Andy Fastow names his baby after Skilling. Fastow explains hedging to the audience. He then shows Skilling his "Raptors" – financial models that act as hedges without actual hedges. Skilling explains that while Enron is declaring profits, no actual profits are actually coming through, meaning there is a deficit of money. Fastow suggests he becomes CFO. He shows Skilling a series of shell companies that Enron can offload bad assets into, made up of 97% Enron stock, but still qualify as independent. This would also keep the stock price up, with the heart of the companies being made up of just a few million. Skilling makes Fastow CFO, and suggests they use Wall Street money to fund the heart of the business, named LJM after Fastow's family. The accountants and lawyers argue over its legality, but eventually sign off on the idea. Skilling reveals Video on Demand (with Blockbuster) and bandwidth trading at a New Year's Eve party at the turn of the millennium, while Roe fights to remain relevant. The raptors take physical shape in Fastow's office, resembling those from Jurassic Park.
| Character | West End | Broadway |
|---|---|---|
| Claudia Roe | Amanda Drew | Marin Mazzie |
| Kenneth Lay | Tim Pigott-Smith | Gregory Itzin |
| Jeffrey Skilling | Samuel West | Norbert Leo Butz |
| Andy Fastow | Tom Goodman-Hill | Stephen Kunken |
| Gayle Davenport | Gillian Budd | Jordan Ballard |
| Lehman Brothers | Peter Caulfield / Tom Godwin | Rightor Doyle/ Anthony Holds |
| Security Officer | Howard Charles | Brandon Dirden |
| Irene Gant | Susannah Fellows | Lusia Strus |
| Arthur Andersen | Stephen Fewell | Anthony Holds |
| Senator | Orion Lee | Tom Nelis |
| Elise Da Luca | Eleanor Matsuura | January LaVoy |
| Trader | Ashley Rolfe | Brandon Dirden Rightor Doyle Anthony Holds Ty Jones Ian Kahn Tom Nelis Jeff Skowron Noah Weisberg |
| Lawyer | Trevor White | Ian Kahn Ty Jones Donald Ferguson |
| Daughter | Mary Stewart Sullivan |
Tim Walker, the Sunday Telegraph critic, gave it five stars, drawing parallels with the plot to that of King Lear. "While it isn't done any more to say this in the financial pages, I say it here with conviction: Enron is a strong buy," he wrote. [8] [9] [10]
In The New York Times review of the Broadway production, Ben Brantley wrote, contrary to some other critics, "even with a well-drilled cast that includes bright Broadway headliners like Norbert Leo Butz and Marin Mazzie, the realization sets in early that this British-born exploration of smoke-and-mirror financial practices isn’t much more than smoke and mirrors itself. Enron is fast-paced, flamboyant and, despite the head-clogging intricacy of its business mathematics, lucid to the point of simple-mindedness. But as was true of the company of this play's title, the energy generated here often feels factitious, all show (or show and tell) and little substance." [11]
Michael Billington, critic for The Guardian , dubbed Brantley's comments an "obtuse and hostile review", [7] stating that "Enron's fate was sealed the moment Brantley's review appeared [...] As a fellow critic, I respect Brantley's right to his opinion; what is dismaying is his failure to see what Prebble and Goold were up to [...] But no serious play on Broadway can survive a withering attack from The New York Times, which carries the force of a papal indictment". [7]
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]
The play received Tony Award nominations for the 2010 Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre, [15] 2010 Best Featured Actor in a Play (Kunken), 2010 Best Lighting Design of a Play (Mark Henderson), and 2010 Best Sound Design of a Play (Adam Cork). [16]
Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. It was founded by Kenneth Lay in 1985 as a merger between Lay's Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both relatively small regional companies. Before its bankruptcy on December 2, 2001, Enron employed approximately 20,600 staff and was a major electricity, natural gas, communications, and pulp and paper company, with claimed revenues of nearly $101 billion during 2000. Fortune named Enron "America's Most Innovative Company" for six consecutive years.
Andrew Stuart Fastow is an American convicted felon and former financier who was the chief financial officer of Enron Corporation, an energy trading company based in Houston, Texas, until he was fired shortly before the company declared bankruptcy. Fastow was one of the key figures behind the complex web of off-balance-sheet special purpose entities used to conceal Enron's massive losses in their quarterly balance sheets. By unlawfully maintaining personal stakes in these ostensibly independent ghost-entities, he was able to defraud Enron out of tens of millions of dollars.
Samuel Alexander Joseph West is an English actor, theatre director and narrator. He has directed on stage and radio, and worked as an actor in theatre, film, television, and radio. He was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his portrayal of Leonard Bast in the Merchant Ivory film adaptation of E. M. Forster's novel Howards End (1992), and was later nominated for the Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for his portrayal of the title role in Rupert's Land (1998). In 2010, he was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Jeffrey Skilling in Lucy Prebble's Enron. He has appeared as reciter with orchestras and performed at the Last Night of the Proms in 2002. He has narrated several documentary series, including five for the BBC about the Second World War.
Conor McPherson is an Irish playwright, screenwriter and director of stage and film. In recognition of his contribution to world theatre, McPherson was awarded an honorary doctorate of literature in June 2013 by University College Dublin.
Sophie Okonedo is a British actress and narrator. The recipient of a Tony Award, she has been nominated for an Academy Award, three BAFTA TV Awards, an Emmy Award, two Laurence Olivier Awards, and a Golden Globe Award. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2019, both for services to drama.
The Coast of Utopia is a 2002 trilogy of plays: Voyage, Shipwreck, and Salvage, written by Tom Stoppard with focus on the philosophical debates in pre-revolution Russia between 1833 and 1866. It was the recipient of the 2007 Tony Award for Best Play. The title comes from a chapter in Avrahm Yarmolinsky's book Road to Revolution: A Century of Russian Radicalism (1959).
Conspiracy of Fools is a 2005 book by Kurt Eichenwald detailing the Enron scandal.
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is a 2005 American documentary film based on the best-selling 2003 book of the same name by Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, who are credited as writers of the film alongside the director, Alex Gibney. It examines the 2001 collapse of the Enron Corporation, which resulted in criminal trials for several of the company's top executives during the ensuing Enron scandal, and contains a section about the involvement of Enron traders in the 2000-01 California electricity crisis. Archival footage is used alongside new interviews with McLean and Elkind, several former Enron executives and employees, stock analysts, reporters, and former Governor of California Gray Davis.
Aikaterini Hadjipateras, known professionally as Kathryn Hunter, is a British–American actress and theatre director, known for her appearances as Arabella Figg in the Harry Potter film series, Eedy Karn in the Disney+ Star Wars spinoff series Andor, as the Three Witches in Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth, and most recently as Swiney in Yorgos Lanthimos's Poor Things. Hunter was born in New York to Greek parents, and was raised in England. She trained at RADA, where she is now an associate and regularly directs student productions, and studied clowning with Philippe Gaulier.
J. T. Rogers is an American playwright. He is best known for his play Oslo (2016) about the 1990s Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and Palestine. The play received widespread acclaim as well as the Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Obie Award for Best Play. He is also known for his plays Madagascar (2004),The Overwhelming (2006), Blood and Gifts (2010), and Corruption (2024).
Marin Joy Mazzie was an American actress and singer known for her work in musical theatre.
LJM, which stands for Lea, Jeffrey, Matthew, the names of Andrew Fastow's wife and children, was a company created in 1999 by Enron Corporation's CFO, Andrew Fastow, to buy Enron's poorly performing assets and bolster Enron's financial statements by hiding its debts.
Rupert Goold is an English director who works primarily in theatre. He is the artistic director of the Almeida Theatre, and was the artistic director of Headlong Theatre Company (2005–2013). Since 2010, Goold has been an associate director at the Royal Shakespeare Company. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2017 for services to drama.
The Enron scandal was an accounting scandal involving Enron Corporation, an American energy company based in Houston, Texas. When news of widespread fraud within the company became public in October 2001, the company filed for bankruptcy and its accounting firm, Arthur Andersen—then one of the five largest audit and accountancy partnerships in the world—was effectively dissolved. In addition to being the largest bankruptcy reorganization in U.S. history at that time, Enron was cited as the biggest audit failure.
Lucy AshtonPrebble is a British playwright and producer. She has received numerous accolades including three Primetime Emmy Awards as well as nominations for a BAFTA Award as well as two Laurence Olivier Awards.
Ruined (2008) is an American play by Lynn Nottage. The play premiered at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, and won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play explores the plight of women during the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Stephen Michael Kunken is an American actor. He is known for the roles of Ari Spyros on Showtime's Billions and Commander Putnam on Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale. His film work includes work with Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Paul Greengrass, Ang Lee, Barry Levinson, Ron Howard and others. Graduating with top honors from The Juilliard School, Kunken has an extensive and celebrated theater career appearing on Broadway in 7 different Productions and countless off-Broadway and Regional productions. He is most readily known for playing Andy Fastow in the Broadway play Enron, for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Featured Actor in a Play. Other Broadway credits include Frost/Nixon and Rock 'n' Roll'.
Jamie Lloyd is a British director, best known for his work with his eponymous theatre company The Jamie Lloyd Company. He is known for his modern minimalism and expressionist directorial style. He is a proponent of affordable theatre for young and diverse audiences, and has been praised as "redefining West End theatre". The Daily Telegraph critic Dominic Cavendish wrote of Lloyd, "Few directors have Lloyd’s ability to transport us to the upper echelons of theatrical pleasure."
Pam MacKinnon is an American theatre director. She has directed for the stage Off-Broadway, on Broadway and in regional theatre. She won the Obie Award for Directing and received a Tony Award nomination, Best Director, for her work on Clybourne Park. In 2013 she received the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play for a revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She was named artistic director of American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California on January 23, 2018.
Peter Caulfield is an English actor.
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