Enron
by Lucy Prebble
A week ago I visited the TimeLine Theatre to see the current production of the 2011-2012 season, another Chicago Premiere.
History, as presented in Lucy Prebble's play Enron, was close to
current events, much as it was last year when TimeLine Theatre Company brought us In
Darfur. I enjoyed Enron as it came alive in the intimate,
in-the-round production at TimeLine Theatre. Rachel Rockwell directed
with controlled staging while the primary actors all impressed me
with stirring performances. This was a play without real heroes, although
Bret Tuomi's portrayal of Jeff Skilling came across as the anti-hero
of the piece, giving leadership a bad name as he directed the
executives including the weasel-like accountant Andy Fastow (Sean
Fortunato). The CEO Ken Lay was portrayed in a convincingly 'hear no
evil-see no evil' manner by Terry Hamilton (one of my favorite of
TimeLine's Associate Artists). 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.
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