Financial saga ‘The Lehman Trilogy’ is headed to New York

A play about the Lehman brothers will arrive next year in New York, the city where the financial firm bearing their name collapsed in 2008.

“The Lehman Trilogy,” written by Stefano Massini and adapted by Ben Power, will run from March 22 to April 20, 2019, at the Park Avenue Armory in the Wade Thompson Drill Hall after a critically-acclaimed stint in London at the National Theatre.

Sam Mendes, the filmmaker and theatre director, will continue as director.

“ ‘The Lehman Trilogy’ is a uniquely American story of an immigrant family who, in building their empire, were active protagonists in two centuries of American history,” Rebecca Robertson, the president and executive director of Park Avenue Armory, said in a statement.

The three-part play follows the three Lehman brothers, played by Adam Godley, Ben Miles and Simon Russell Beale, from their arrival in New York in 1844 to the 2008 bankruptcy of the company they founded. The three actors, who will stay on in the New York production, also portray the brothers’ sons and grandsons.

The New York Times critic Ben Brantley called the London production a “transfixing saga of family and finance” and named it a Critic’s Pick, singling out its “three extraordinary actors” for special praise.

“The Lehman Trilogy” received its world premiere in 2015 at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan. The Italian production inspired Mendes to stage an English adaptation, and turned to Power, the deputy artistic director of the National Theatre, to create a new version of the five-hour play based on a translation by Mirella Cheeseman.

The slimmed-down production — it now runs about three hours — debuted in London in July. Its final performance at the National Theatre is scheduled for Oct 20.

New Yorkers will have an opportunity to see some of Massini’s work before 2019. PlayCo is staging a production of his play “Intractable Woman: A Theatrical Memo on Anna Politkovskaya” at 122CC in Manhattan beginning Thursday.

Tickets for the Park Avenue Armory run will go on sale Wednesday.

© 2018 New York Times News Service