Just over a week ago, TimeLine opened its 50th production — Lucy Prebble’s beautiful provocation called Enron, directed by Rachel Rockwell.
Whenever a show opens I admit that I have a period of odd withdrawal. In the weeks leading up to opening I am around the theatre all the time, around the clock. It’s one of the parts of my job I cherish the most — getting to play a hands-on role in pushing a show to its fullest potential and working with a great team to fine-tune every aspect for opening night. After that night comes and goes, while I certainly don’t just disappear back to my office, I definitely do step back to put the show in the hands of our incredibly capable cast and stage managers for a 13-week run.
But Enron is a hard show to step back from, because in so many ways the play is a provocation. It pricks your curiosity to learn more and talk more.
Now the show is up, and while the cast is responsible for serving up the story every night, the play is really in the hands of you now — the TimeLine audience.
The conversations I have already had with many of you speak directly to our intentions for producing this play — it’s gonna get people talking. As was evidenced with the disconnect between the response to the production in London (where it was a huge hit) and the one in New York (where it was not), this play can be polarizing. That is certainly not new information to us, and it’s a challenge we have relished since choosing to bring the play to Chicago for the first time and paring it down for our intimate space.
I can’t think of a conversation I’d rather be having right now in our theatre, as we venture deeper into the circus of the 2012 election. Lucy Prebble’s play — in all its audacious, theatrical glory — tees up a conversation that is both insightful and (10 years later) urgent.
Going into any production, we have a sense of the conversations that a play will ignite, but we’re never fully sure until all of you show up. It’s always thrilling to find out where we guessed right and where we guessed wrong — what things you grab hold of that maybe we weren’t expecting, and what you most want to talk about.
A few days ago I was on the sidewalk after a performance and saw a group in a heated — and I mean heated — debate about deregulation. I observed with great interest and satisfaction that we sent people home with things to think about and discuss.
So I’m curious to hear from those who have seen the show …
- What do you find most relevant about Enron?
- Do any of you have personal ties to the story?
- And have you found yourself rethinking — or better understanding — things about the collapse of Enron as a result of seeing the show?
We look forward to hearing about what’s on your mind!
Comments (0)
Rick Gray
If we could truly understand what the tipping point is for hubris to set in and take over, we might be able to help future, up and coming leaders to know the warning signs and avoid its tragic outcomes. Our society is desperate for real leadership with integrity. It’s absence threatens the very foundation on which this great country was built.
John Sterling
We had a big group out at the show on Saturday night (2/4). Many retired to Wilde afterword and discussed the show. Probably the main, recurring point many of us discussed was where each of us draw (or drew) the line in the search for profits or growth in the businesses where we work (or had worked). That led to a realization among many of us that corporate goals are often set without much thought – they are just a percentage increase over last year’s performance, however realistic or unrealistic that may be.
Personally, I had a very large client in the late 90’s and early 00’s for whom Enron was both a major customer and an indirect competitor. Enron’s success and its meteoric rise had pretty much everyone in the pipeline business (even people in the trading operations of the major oil companies) wondering what Enron knew that no one else knew. Turned out, they knew how to hide their debt in phantom subsidiaries. As the play underscores, eventually those chickens (or raptors) came home to roost.
Excellent show – congratulations to all of you on mounting another thought-provoking and stellar production.
john gorny
We felt the play was well done and were enlightened by it. Sadly, we live in a country that
can send Martha Stewart up the river for insider trading but cannot find any wrong doers
years after the subprime mortgage collapse. Banks, insurers, mortgage companies, investment houses, federal programs, pension funds and investors were devastated. Where are the convictions ? Where are the laws preventing huge bonuses from a failed institution ?
David Varnerin
The play was excellent. The topic is very timely. I recall discussing Enron in the late 1990’s with a neighbor, who was considering buying some of their stock. I had read what the company did in the trading area and couldn’t understand how a firm engaged in a highly risky and volatile business could deliver such consistent results. Well, it turns out that they were cooking the books. Not the first and surely not the last company to do this. More recently, we have another example (Bernie Madoff) who made the whole thing up. And where was government, even with warning signs apparent to many? Fortunately, I never bought any Enron stock.
lois pitalis
We saw the play several weeks ago and personally I can say that I learned more about Enron from the play than I did when it actually was occuring. The acting was excellent and totally expected from the splendid company at Timeline.
J laz
We were a large group of 18 that went to see Enron on Saturday Feb. 25.
I know that EVERYONE in our group thought that the show was absolutely AMAZING! It was funny, sad, and informative! The acting was fantastic!
It was everyone’s first time at the Timeline theater, and we were a little skeptical when we saw how small the theater was. That actually turned out to be a huge plus, because we all felt like we were in the play….and there was no bad seat in the theater.
Great job, and keep up the good work!!!!
Daven Morrison MD
Enron the play was really engaging and I really enjoyed the production. It is a very complex story and the TimelIne company did an excellent job with the theater as well as the notes for the play in recreating the larger story within which Enron fell of American life, as well as who the characters were and the complex economic terms and characters. I was impressed with the acting. They really left it all out there on the stage. Very exciting production.
ENRON did have a tie w me as well as I was of many who did work for Arthur Andersen, and I know employees at Continental Bank who worked with Andy Fastow when he was there.
PJ was kind enough to invite me to participate in a panel after the program which was impressive for the engagement of the audience (most stayed). It was neat to see the actors there as well. Some in the audience asked about a book we are writing: Behavioral Forensics: Bringing Freud to Fraud. Those who are interested also out to see my fellow panelist’s documentary: Crossing the Line. It is a production of Dr Kelly Pope who is a forensic accountant from DePaul and a professor of accounting. She has interviewed many professionals and has also interviewed actual felons to try and understand why people commit fraud.
Sullivan Peggy
AFTER SEEING ENRON ON MARCH 1, I BEGAN ALMOST IMMEDIATELY ENCOURAGING OTHERS TO SEE IT AND I WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO. I ESPECIALLY APPRECIATED THE FACT THAT MAJOR ACTORS, THE DRAMATURG, AND OTHERS PARTICIPATED IN THE QUESTION-AND-ANSWER AFTER THE SHOW. MUCH TO THINK ABOUT! I, TOO, FELT THAT I LEARNED MORE ABOUT THE EVENTS THAN I DID AT THE TIME ALL OF THAT WAS HAPPENING. MY TAKE ON THAT IS THAT MANY PEOPLE WERE FOCUSED ON OTHER STUFF — E.G., THE 9-11 ATTACKS AROUND THAT TIME AND LET SOME OF THIS ROLL OFF THEIR BACKS.
INCIDENTALLY, THERE IS AT LEAST ONE BAD SEAT AT TIMELINE, PERHAPS THREE OR FOUR, BUT I HAD ONE OF THEM — A CHAIR IN THE BACK ROW, CENTER SECTION, NORTH SIDE — ABOVE SOME CONTRAPTION THAT RUMBLES, SHAKES, AND IN GENERAL DISCONCERTS THE PLAYGOER. I KEPT LOOKING FOR SOMEONE SHAKING A LEG, MOVING A CHAIR, OR SOMETHING, BUT LEARNED AT THE INTERMISSION IT WAS A NECESSARY PART OF THE PRODUCTION. FORTUNATELY, IWAS ABLE TO MOVE FOR THE SECOND PART OF THE PLAY, SO I HOPE THE PLAY DOES NOT BECOME SO POPULAR THAT THAT OPTION IS UNAVAILABLE! (I’M SORT OF ONLY KIDDING!)
James Henderson
I attended the play last Sunday with friends and enjoyed Enron as it came alive in the intimate, in-the-round production. Rachel Rockwell directed with controlled staging while the primary actors all impressed me with stirring performances. The business-like pacing of the production production, plus a set that gave you the feeling that you were there back in the nineties, and delicious touches like board members as blind mice and CFO Andrew Fastow’s “raptor” debt shelters as actual velociraptors made the afternoon quite entertaining.
I wish I could praise the dramatic material as much as the company, but I did not see much depth or nuance in the play. Rather, even under the controlled hand of Rockwell’s direction, it was a expository tale without the necessary underpinnings to provide insight into the criminal behavior, beyond the stereotypical greed of businessmen. I hope that somewhere there are playwrights willing to go beyond this type of simplistic drama. That the TimeLine Theatre Company was able to fashion an entertaining production from this material is further evidence of their artistic excellence.
Adding to the enjoyment of the afternoon was the excellent panel presentation afterwords. I found the panelists’ comments instructive and thoughtful.
Justin Sayin
Yeah, the play’s a bit weak. The actors are fine and do what they can with what is basically heartless, soulless material. Who is the audience supposed to care for, identify with, feel good or bad for? All of these folks are presented as outrageously hateful (literally throwing their soiled toilet paper on the table after wiping, subtle!), and the mere fact that Skilling cares for his daughter (and one dreads to think what ways of the world he would teach the poor child) doesn’t do a thing to mitigate his unalloyed self-interest, try as the author may to have him dress himself in noble intent. If the venality and greed of profit economics are the plays big message, let’s face it, you’re preaching to the choir.