Adrian Lester Discusses His Broadway Debut in the Hit Play, 'The Lehman Trilogy'

In the thrilling new Broadway play The Lehman Trilogy, directed by Sam Mendes, three actors play 53 characters. For the actors, it is an accomplishment that is as much physical as it is artistic. The play, like its characters, have high ambitions, and those ambitions are realized, in the writing, production and definitely in the acting.

Making his Broadway debut in The Lehman Trilogy is Adrian Lester as, among many other roles, Emanuel Lehman, a part originally played in London and at the Park Avenue Armory by Ben Miles. He talked with Newsweek about the play, his roles in it and the themes that makes this very British play so American and so universal.

For many years in London, Lester was an award-winning actor in a range of roles, from classical—as Othello—to Bobby, in the 1996 production of Stephen Sondheim's Company, which was also by Mendes. When Mendes called and asked Lester to join the company, he accepted immediately, having seen the show only once in London.

The play had only been on Broadway for four performances before the pandemic shut it down, so when Lester joined, everything was rebuilt from the bottom up. "The choreography was there," Lester told Newsweek, "but nothing else. So we began to pull apart scenes and lines were pulled out and other lines were changed. We talked about new attitudes toward the trade, changing attitudes to women.... We would augment what's been done before. For those who'd seen it before in London, this is a different production."

Also with the casting of Lester, key dynamics of the play changed: Early on, when the Lehmans are in the cotton business, they deal with Southern slave owners. So Lester's casting adds a much different dimension to that part of the story. A Black man dispassionately talking about slaves and slave owners forces the audience to think outside the realistic box and view the play in more universal, more classical terms. While, issues like race, gender, religion still matter, they are seen here more as historical realities than hot-button issues.

"It's quite a classic formula," Lester told Newsweek. "It's actually a long prose poem, really. There's repetition; there are moments that we come back to again and again and they suddenly change. The movements are repeated, the spinning box—all of it adds to the poetry of talking about growth commitments and need—and then too much growth. And too much need."

And while each actor quickly switches from one character to another in short expository scenes, there are also arias: dream sequences of panic attacks. They occur at moments when Lehman Brothers is on the precipice of failure and of "the company pushing forward in terms of growth. There was always a fear [for the brothers] that it's going to be taken away from them or they haven't got enough or something's coming to get them. And with that fear, they push forward and force more growth in the company."

"And," Lester continued, "I think that that is something that speaks volumes to people: Most people, when they are shown that they've made $10 million a year, the edge of their sword to cut and thrust, to try and get more, is blunted because they think, Wow, you know what, I'm going to put my feet up and go on holiday."

The Lehmans, however, were not "most people."

"But it takes a certain kind of mind when you're not thinking about what you're providing to the public service, in terms of welfare or safety security, when it comes down to simple business practice to see how much more we can get. If you hit that mark, and it makes you push forward to have because you're scared that it might be taken away. That's the kind of mindset the insecurity and the subconscious gnawing that we express in the dreams."

So although the Lehmans get quite powerful and quite rich, Lester added, they are afraid "it can be taken away from them, and they think, What do I do if this happens?

"So you push and push and push up to this point where you believe you are too big to fail, too big be bought out. And that's the comfortable area. But then you have to maintain the trust...of everyone who's giving you their money to look after? Because without that trust, everything falls apart."

At these moments the Lehmans pull together and move their company to the next level.

Ironically, when Lehman Brothers does collapse, no family member remains with the company. The dreams and fears are all in the past.

In the U.K., Lester has played many classical roles. When asked if that prepares him for a show like The Lehman Trilogy, he told Newsweek, "It depends on the role. In terms of this, it is tricky because there's three of us on stage. But we still came at the text with the same scrutiny and the same approach. I feel that the fact that I've done the classical plays helps me in my approach to this. Because it helps with the clarity of the language. All classical plays, I think, ask you to imagine a world that's bigger than the spoken word on the stage, much bigger."

This speaks to nontraditional casting. "It also [asks you] to see much more in what is said, what the person looks like, what the effects is, where they are in the status in life, that there's much more see much more humanity than you are to simply look at external circumstances.

"You have three actors that are all brothers at your starting point, and after that just starts to spin: One of us is Black; one of us is Jewish—we're all playing Jewish; none of us are Americans, and we're all playing Americans. So the play starts to spin, and what you're left with, hopefully, is just the character, the characters created in front of you by three performers. Those three performers become in many ways sexless, genderless, and they just become vessels through which the story is told, hopefully, for most of the audience, as with I think, a lot of classics. And hopefully, they're able to see character before they see color."

The Lehman Trilogy also need not be limited to being performed by just males. Lester says there is no reason why the play couldn't be done with a woman or three women. This is not just the story of one family coming to America, making a life and succeeding. It is the immigrant experience compressed into one family.

More than most plays, The Lehman Trilogy is an ensemble piece. Pity the poor Tony voters if they have to choose from the three actors come next spring. But Broadway audiences can at least be grateful for the opportunity to finally see Adrian Lester at the top of his game.

The show will close in New York in January, but Lester told Newsweek that he believes it's going to move on to Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Note if you are planning to see The Lehman Trilogy: The theater has streamlined the vaccination and mask issues. Theatergoers should just have proof of vaccination and a picture ID ready. Masks were available for anyone who needed one, and getting into the theater was no more difficult than before the pandemic.

The Lehman Trilogy is running through January 2, 2022 at the Nederlander Theatre, 208 West 41st Street, New York. Proof of vaccination is required for entry and masks must be worn inside the theater at all times. For tickets and more information go to TheLehmanTrilogy.com.