This evening, June 12th, Beale won a Tony Award for his performance. Here we revisit our interview with him about the many roles he and his fellow cast-mates play in The Lehman Trilogy (which also won the Tony Award for Best Play and Best Director.)

Beale is part of a cast of three actors (Adam Godley and Howard W. Overshown) who tell and act out the rise and fall of the Lehman family from the moment they first arrive in the United States in 1844 through to the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2007. It’s absolutely riveting and amongst the best three hours one can spend in a theatre. Each actor takes on literally dozens of roles throughout the play.

The Lehman Trilogy was written by Stefano Massini and adapted by Ben Powers. Sam Mendes directed the show which debuted at The National Theatre in London.

The US premiere took place at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City and the show recently concluded a Broadway run which will make it eligible for Tony Award consideration. Be prepared for multiple nominations for this play.

Though it all seems effortless now, Beale, in a recent phone conversation, said it wasn’t always that way.

“You should have seen the first performances, they weren’t effortless. Adam and I were joking about the first four performances. I don’t even remember them they were so traumatic. I remember the feeling before the first night and we didn’t know what sort of a beast we had. And the sheer three hour-long effort of it was very, very daunting.”

Beale, who is considered one of the finest stage actors of our time, has received 10 Olivier nominations and has three wins. He has two BAFTA Awards and is so acknowledged for his work he was awarded a Knighthood in 2019. That doesn’t mean he takes himself too seriously.

“I’m a slightly stocky, middle-aged Englishman with a beard and I’m now pretending to be all sorts of different things just because I say so, rather than with any other help. And that’s quite fun. It’s not about emotional expression or effort. It’s about just keeping the mind focused. If you make a mistake, and I don’t think we’ve ever done a perfect performance actually, but if you make a mistake, you just have to forget it and move very quickly on.”

Though Beale speaks of bedtime stories and pretending, The Lehman Trilogy is a quite serious look at the American Dream.

“It’s about the pitfalls of the American Dream as much is about the the achievements of the American Dream. What was intriguing about doing the play, and especially doing the play in the New York, of course, in the city where the evidence of what they did is around you. I do remember going to see the Lehman wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and seeing the art collection and thinking they touched these. Their pictures are up on the wall. This is part of the fabric of the literal bricks and mortar of this city.”

Though the business completely fell apart with greed and avarice coursing through the veins of those who inherited or ran the company, Beale feels it is not his job to pass judgement on the characters or to make a statement about what they did.

“One of my characters has a line where he says ‘No one. No one outside the family would ever fully understand what we’ve done and why we did it.’ And it’s always stuck in my head that phrase. The sheer ambition and the sheer imagination of their business activities is sort of extraordinary isn’t it?“

However, when asked how much is enough, it was then that Beale considered the other side of the equation.

“At the same time, you know, you have to wonder about how much money you need, among other things. How many zeros will satisfy. It does make you think about your own desire for money or need for money. I mean, how much is regarded as a feasible amount? How much becomes no longer really morally right.”

The Lehman Trilogy has been a part of Beale’s life for four years (albeit with a year-and-a-half interruption by the pandemic.) When asked how his relationship to the play has evolved over time it became clear it wasn’t something he’d previously contemplated.

“That’s a very interesting question. Funnily enough on the last two days I suddenly realized I was just sort of repeating stuff without thinking about it. So I’ve started to give myself a challenge to try and make hopefully almost imperceptible changes to the way I did them. For instance, there’s an Irish maid who greets Emanuel when he’s courting his wife, Pauline. She’s got two lines and sometimes I’m just doing it automatically. I wanted to reassess what her attitude to to her little job was in that particular scene, to how excited she was, how shy she was, how she was speaking. It’s literally two lines.”

He then took a moment and pondered some of the other characters he plays on stage each night.

“I think Philip has become tougher. He is the son of Emanuel who takes the company through the 19th century through to the railways and the Panama Canal. I think he’s become harder. But, of course, his relationship with his father and his son has become a little bit more hurtful. He is hurt by them more than he used to be. So tiny little changes of who the person is.”

When the engagement at the Ahmanson Theatre ends Beale will bid adieu to the play and his many roles. As much as he’s worked on the play and enjoyed it, he isn’t sorry to say goodbye.

“I’m only sorry in the sense I’ve done it a lot now. It’s time to go and I’m fairly steely about plays. I’ve only ever really once thought I couldn’t do a play enough and that was the production of The Seagull I did many, many years ago. I say goodbye and close the door and on really.”

Beale, who is a fan of classical music, hosted Sacred Music on television in England. He made a comment on one of the episodes about what he could glean from a portrait of the composer Johannes Brahms and his work just by looking at the portrait. We finished our conversation by my asking what people could learn about him by looking at his eyes in a photo from the end of this production.

“Of course, it’s not for me to answer, is it? It’s very easy to jump to judgment. We have to make assumptions about about rich people, I suppose, or capitalism or something. And it’s easy to be unsympathetic. I hope they would see something that was sympathetic.”

Main photo: Simon Russell Beale in The Lehman Trilogy (Photo by Craig Schwartz/Courtesy Center Theatre Group)

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Our personal favorite nominations are those going to the shows Caroline, Or Change, Company and A Strange Loop in the musicals category. In the plays we’re thrilled to see Dana H., For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf and The Lehman Trilogy amongst the nominees.

We’ve had conversations with many of this year’s nominees and you might want to take another look at what they shared with us. They include:

Simon Russell Beale who is nominated for his performance in The Lehman Trilogy.

“I’m a slightly stocky, middle-aged Englishman with a beard and I’m now pretending to be all sorts of different things just because I say so, rather than with any other help. And that’s quite fun. It’s not about emotional expression or effort. It’s about just keeping the mind focused. If you make a mistake, and I don’t think we’ve ever done a perfect performance actually, but if you make a mistake, you just have to forget it and move very quickly on.”

A side note: Beale is nominated as are his on-stage colleagues Adam Godley and Adrian Lester. Separating one performance from another is a fool’s game. They should have been nominated as a trio in the same way in which the three boys who originated the role of “Billy Elliot” in the musical of the same name were.

Shoshana Bean who is nominated for her performance in the Jason Robert Brown musical Mr. Saturday Night.

“I think that I’m a culmination of all the things I’ve soaked up in my life. I’m very Streisand, there’s Frank Sinatra, Chrissie Hyde, John Mayer, Aretha Franklin…while it may seem original, we’re all using the same ingredients. What matters are your proportions. I go left when people think I’m going right. I don’t look at it as strategic decisions, it’s what I’m lead to do. It’s literally been what felt like it needed to happen.”

Dale Franzen who is a co-producer of nominees Caroline, Or Change and For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf.

“I would say I am much more leaning into stories like that that I feel have such a harder time of being told. Let’s be honest, men aren’t telling those stories. They keep telling the stories that they want to see and I think that women have been shortchanged. I want to be part of changing that. That is not to say that if I’m sent something that I feel is really extraordinary and it happens to be written by a man or it’s a male story that doesn’t mean I won’t get involved. But I would say right now what I feel drawn to moving our stories forward.”

Matt Doyle who is nominated for his brilliantly comedic performance in the revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Company.

“I have a lot of experience in being incredibly anxious over general anxiety disorder and panic disorder. And I know the feeling very well of the surprise and the fear that Jamie experiences during that song. Also the staging is so smart and so brilliant. I think half of what you’re seeing on stage is me turning that kind of delight and excitement and thrill of what I get to do and what the audience gets to see every night into something that is coming off as surprise.”

Deirdre O’Connell who is nominated for her breath-taking performance in Dana H.

“It does feel like there is an infinite number of discoveries to be found. As a ride it’s pretty endless. I feel like it would be interesting to try to do a long run of it. It think you’d have to build breaks into it. the way the fatigue manifests itself is more like it sounds echo-y to me or I’m having a hard time hearing it right now. I could be wrong. It could be easier in terms of the doing it.”

Jayne Houdyshell who is nominated for her performance in the revival of The Music Man.

“I really am a creature of theatre. I came up in the theatre. I chose the life of an actress because of my love of the theatre. It’s always been foremost home for me. I’ve had a few small opportunities to do television and film work. While I appreciate it very much, I don’t feel like the real trajectory of my career is about that or will probably ever be about that. I just am most a home in the theatre.“

To read the full interviews with each artist, please click on the link built into their name.

Once again, congratulations to all 2022 Tony nominees!

Main Photo: Opening Night of “Company” (Photo by Rebecca J. Michelson)

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As directed by Sam Mendes, three actors portray all the characters in The Lehman Trilogy. Those stunningly versatile actors are Adam Godley, Simon Russell Beale and Ben Miles. They also don’t just act the story. Much of the story, as written by playwright Stefano Massini (adapted by Ben Power), is told to the audience. You don’t need to know anything about this history. It is not only presented very clearly, it’s also utterly compelling theatre. Don’t be afraid of the material. It seems dry, but I can assure you there is nothing dry about this play at all.

Whether you live in Los Angeles or anywhere else, you can use the link in the opening paragraph to find a performance near you. In the LA area, there will be four performances at the James Bridges Theatre (July 27th, 28th and August 4th and 25th.) Irvine Barclay Theatre will be screening The Lehman Trilogy, but not until February 5th.

The only truly live performance is on the 25th of July. All other showings will be just that…screenings of the live performance from this week.

Rumor has it that a tour of The Lehman Trilogy is being planned. But this play, to be seen properly, requires quite a large theatre. Even if you think you’ll want to see the play live, I strongly recommend you go to one of the screenings to see it as originally produced.

Photo: Adam Godley, Simon Russell Beale and Ben Miles

Photo by Mark Douet/Courtesy of National Theatre Live

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You might think that a three-hour and twenty minute play about the rise and fall of Lehman Brothers would be dry material that would only appeal to fans of the most esoteric of Tom Stoppard’s works. But The Lehman Trilogy, now in previews at the  Nederlander Theatre in New York, is anything but dry.

The Lehman Trilogy officially opens on March 26th and is scheduled to run through  June 28th.

Ben Power has adapted Stefano Massini’s play which has been produced several times in Europe. Sam Mendes, perhaps best known as the director of American Beauty and Skyfall, directs a three-person cast. Simon Russell Beale plays Henry Lehman. Adam Godley plays Mayer Lehman. Ben Miles plays Emanuel Lehman. But that’s only part of the story. Each actor takes on multiple roles. For it is only these three actors, on a rotating office set, that both tell us and act out this amazing story.

The Lehman Trilogy is ultimately an immigrant story. As the family finds its footing in America, they gradually grow their little business into one of the biggest financial companies in the world. A company that would become an example of the financial crisis in America in 2008.

Mendes’ direction keeps the story, told in three parts, moving quickly. The actors all give amazing performances.  And the show is a runaway success for its limited run. This is truly a theatrical high-wire act that mirrors the image used to advertise the play.

This play sold out at The National Theatre, the Park Avenue Armory and on London’s West End. If you can’t make it to New York, The Lehman Trilogy is part of   the Ahmanson Theatre’s 2020-2021 season

The Lehman Trilogy has a run time of 3 hours and 20 minutes which includes 2 15-minute intermissions.

For tickets go here.

All production photos by Stephanie Berger

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