There was a warning. And its name was Enron. Read more …
Following the end of its record-breaking run at the Noel Coward Theatre on 14 August, ENRON is directed by Rupert Goold and has broken box office and attendance records at the Noel Coward Theatre since it opened in January 2010.
Inspired by real-life events and using music, dance and video, ENRON explores one of the most infamous scandals in financial history, reviewing the tumultuous 1990s and casting a new light on the financial turmoil in which the world currently finds itself.
This is an explosive, pulsating, big-cast production drawing on contemporary music, bold staging and pop-promo choreography to convey its modern take on what is, in effect, an ancient tragedy of self-delusion.
Enron comes across like an elaborate party the morning after: you know you had a good time, but you’re really fuzzy on the whys and hows.
It (is) easy to understand why this play was a hit in London, and sank with little trace in New York; it's a story of 21st-century US capitalism filtered through a British and European tradition of agitprop theatre - surreal, graphic, and sometimes cartoonish. How well it works, in the case of Enron, is debatable.
There’s the occasional sense that both Prebble and Goold are a little bit in awe of the sheer brass-necked audacity of those behind the sorry real-life spectacle.
It educates without being patronising and the audience is swept away by the theatricality of money.
Lucy Prebble's play Enron deals with financial crisis
A hit you can bank on
Preview: Enron, King's Theatre, Edinburgh
King's Theatre, Edinburgh from Tuesday November 9, 2010, until Saturday November 13, 2010. More info: http://www.edtheatres.com/kings