Saw this tonight and I'm not sure what to think.
On one hand, I was almost never bored (almost). On the other hand, this is an entirely narrated exercise. In fact, it's not a play, by the definition of the traditional structure and craft of playwrighting.
I'll start with the good: The story-tellers (actors/narrators) are excellent. Three men play so many characters and move seamlessly in and out of various accents, with ease. The set is interesting, mostly anachronistic and, after this and Yerma, glass boxes must be a thing at the Armory. The projections are pretty neat, even if I'm not a big fan of projections. Oddly, for 3.5 hours, I was not bored for 99% of it.
As for the not so positive: 3.5 hours of narration/story-telling is not a play. Live underscoring does not compensate for lack of dramatic tension. Despite its length, there is no character development, so that when major events happen (deaths, etc), we are coldly detached, if not disinterested. Not once did I feel emotionally invested in any of it, which made the ending devoid of impact. This is a bullet-point essay..."this happened, then this happened, then that happened, then this happened..."
There is no point of view. The author seems to want to tell us a story of immigrants who came to America and took advantage of their hard work and the freedom of capitalism, to build an empire that ultimately failed (138 years later), but the work doesn't do that. It just tells us what happened, but it doesn't tell me why I need to be sitting in a theater watching this, tonight. If it intends to praise or indict the "system," if fails at doing either.
The last 79 years of history and the conclusion were so rushed, they were almost silly. I'm surprised Sam Mendes didn't think of something better for the second half of act three.
It took me until the third act to realize what my brain had been trying to figure out about the entire work. This is an audiobook of a Wikipedia page about the Lehman Brothers, with all its attendant superficiality. They just decided to put it on stage. I think this would be fun to listen to with these actors performing so many characters, but it really didn't require watching.
The audience seemed to mostly like it although many did not stand. The gentleman next to me slept through much of the second act and left at the second intermission, but the woman next to me, walking out said that was "damn good."
In no way was this terrible to watch and it moves rapidly, but I'd love to ask the playwright why he thought I should be watching it, at all.
