GableStage outdid themselves with their current production, The Lehman Trilogy, and that’s saying a lot considering I’ve been a subscriber for many years and have always enjoyed their plays. Written in Italian by playwright-novelist Stefano Massini, it has been translated in 24 languages since its debut in 1918 and was a Tony award winner. It’s the story of immigrant brothers who came to the US in 1844 and created their American dream, navigating tumultuous times in American history to create one of the largest and most innovative investment banks in the world.  Happily the play is extended to April 24.

One hundred sixty three years later the company they built, Lehman Brothers, spectacularly collapsed and with it,helped spark the financial crisis of 2008. The narrative is both compelling and informative, the performances riveting, and the production well done.

The play is in three acts, but though it’s three hours, it whizzed by. The New York based cast is just three male actors who switch from character to character without a break – playing Lehman descendents, wives, merchants, clients, executives and more. They’re so accomplished, one truly suspends imagination and though, for example, a character just dons a flirtatious hat, with a posture and altered voice, you truly believe he is a woman. They change their accent as well, whether it’s from a German or Hungarian tinged English to a Southern drawl or Hebrew prayer.

The play traces the lives of these three Jewish brothers who emigrated from Bavaria to Montgomery, Alabama, between 1844 and 1850, ran a dry-goods shop, and then moved into the cotton-trading business there.

Over the next decades, they manage to weather the destruction of the Alabama economy with the civil war, the transformation of New York into a financial capital, and the crash of 1929 with brilliant maneuvers and strategic thinking that took them from cotton, to coffee, to owning a railroad, starting a bank and one of the first trading departments, taking advantage of the period of wealth building in America.

The Lehman Trilogy runs through April 24 (extended). Don’t miss it. GableStage at The Biltmore Hotel. BTW, after this there’s one final play in the season. The new season starts in November; subscriptions are open now.