276°
Posted 20 hours ago

Enron (Modern Plays)

£5.495£10.99Clearance
ZTS2023's avatar
Shared by
ZTS2023
Joined in 2023
82
63

About this deal

Structurally these sinful characteristics are further embedded. From the beginning of Enron Skilling’s selfishness is conveyed as he exclaims his company’s `running on Darwinian principles’ and his monosyllabic distressing statement than `money and sex motivate people’ suggest our lust and greed is inherent. However, what heightens the suggestion that these sins are inherent is that on the final epilogue Skilling distorts the standard biblical corinthius quote to state `the greatest of all is..money’. It is structurally interesting and distressing that Skilling’s mindset has not changed regarding money despite the fact that ‘the Californian electricity [was] deregulated’ due to his actions. Thus, contextual knowledge about the far reaching effects of the Enron crash that would resonate with contemporary audiences enhance the notion that Prebble is preoccupied with man’s inherent greed. As Marxist criticism would thus deduce that the moral message is that man is too flawed to handle power.

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 comedy of that "why?", perhaps a legacy of her own childhood, informs every line of Prebble's play. This afternoon she has been watching the cast rehearse a scene about an "Enron death weekend" in which the bonus-heavy execs got to ride team-building dune buggies. "We were doing this vroom vroom stuff with chairs and so on," she explains, "but of course all the guys got completely into it, and all the girls, me and the assistant directors and a few others, kind of looked on. Some giggled and thought it was hilarious, and some tried seriously to analyse it, wondered what it meant." The Succession writers’ room was different. Filled with British and American talent – mostly from the world of comedy – its atmosphere couldn’t have been further away from the “slightly swaggering, dry academia” of British theatre: “It was like exhaling. Like coming home. Generous, compassionate and safe.” Prebble adds, hinting at just how hard she has found the play-writing process in the past: “I discovered how much easier it was to be creative and funny having a conversation with other people rather than just with yourself, which can sometimes get a little odd and self-punishing.” 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 story begins with an ambitious young executive, Jeffrey Skilling (Samuel West), introducing Enron employees to a scheme called “mark to market”. This is a way for the company to predict the profits it expects to make on future investments, and declare them straight away – effectively making money immediately on transactions that haven’t even occurred yet.Jones, Kenneth. "'Enron', a Theatrical Dissection of a Famous Crime, Opens on Broadway" playbill.com, 27 April 2010 Hitchings 'Here is the blustering energy of capitalism, the illusion of being a delirious romp; and here too its narcissism and testosterone-fueled nastiness.' Anreas Wiseman (27 November 2019). " 'Secret Diary Of A Call Girl' Creator & 'Succession' Writer/Exec Lucy Prebble Awarded Wellcome Screenwriting Fellowship In Collab With BFI, Film4". Deadline. Greed runs riot through Texas in this thrilling production, which charts one of the most infamous financial scandals in recent history. Satirical and comic, Enron is recognised as a modern classic and seeks to cast new light on the world’s ongoing financial turmoil.

Prebble doesn’t fail to remind her audience of the timeliness of the production, as the list of Enron’s rivals doubles as a list of banks and corporations that went to the wall when the current financial crisis broke. Particular fun is had with the Lehman brothers, who appear on stage together, three-legged, wearing a single trench coat. Enron features strong language, violence, scenes of a sexual nature, discrimination and references to incidents of terrorism. When out and about with Piper, Prebble remembers being “quite literally pushed out of the way [by paparazzi], constantly. It was disgusting,” she grimaces. “Another time, when we were out with a group of people but couldn’t get into a place, this guy took Billie by the shoulders and moved her to the front of the group – like she was the figurehead of a ship – and said, ‘this will work’. And of course it did, immediately.” 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. Not surprisingly, Enron’s run at the Royal Court is completely sold out. The good news is that it’s transferring to the Noel Coward Theatre on 16 January next year. Book now.

Still can’t find what you need?

But in the last few years, Prebble has started to change: “I no longer feel closest to Connie. I’m much less in need of certainty.” Instead, Prebble is trying to act first and think second: “Just do it. Just trust your instinct. Then you grow in courage, which is really the only quality that matters. Courage, and kindness.” The 40 best plays to read before you die". The Independent. 18 August 2019 . Retrieved 16 April 2020. Money’ is the last word in the play, and it’s also the first item on Prebble’s agenda. Money is what her play is all about – money, the love of it, and the lengths to which the financial world’s movers and shakers will go to acquire it. It’s hardly a shattering observation and it says nothing about greed that hasn’t been said in countless novels, films and plays before.

When she first had the idea, she says, three years ago, at a time when the collapse of the American energy giant Enron looked more like an isolated scandal than the shape of things to come, it was to do it as a musical (Prebble is nothing if not ambitious). She pitched it that way to the theatre company Headlong; however, Rupert Goold, who is directing the play - and is the most acclaimed interpreter of Shakespeare of his generation - suggested that when she described it she was not talking about a musical at all, but a classical tragedy. Why didn't she go and write it that way instead? "That was when it really came alive for me," she suggests. Clement, Olivia. "David Cromer Sets Cast for Lucy Prebble's 'The Effect' Off-Broadway" playbill.com, 28 January 2016 If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. Hare cryptically reveals that his own questioning self will be represented as a character on stage. It seems fair to assume, on past form, that he will be critical of a government response that, as George Monbiot has written, has consisted of giving our money to the people who caused the crisis in the first place. Hare says: "I'm trying to break through the protective attitudes of the bankers, who argue that it was a recession just like any other, that we have to reconstitute the system as it was and that there is no need to question or examine the very basis of capitalism. It was Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, who admitted that 'the whole intellectual framework has collapsed'. That's what I'm trying to explore."a b Edwardes, Jane. "The Critics' Circle Theatre Awards 2012" criticscircle.org.uk, 16 January 2013

Asda Great Deal

Free UK shipping. 15 day free returns.
Community Updates
*So you can easily identify outgoing links on our site, we've marked them with an "*" symbol. Links on our site are monetised, but this never affects which deals get posted. Find more info in our FAQs and About Us page.
New Comment