concept

The Lehman Trilogy

Also known as: Lehman Trilogy

Facts (21)

Sources

'The Lehman Trilogy' and Wall Street's Debt to Slavery reparationscomm.org Reparations Comm Nov 10, 2021 12 facts

perspectiveThe author argues that 'The Lehman Trilogy' is analogous to a play about a dynasty founded in the Nazi era that ignores the family's role in the Holocaust.

perspectiveThe author argues that the erasure of slavery from 'The Lehman Trilogy' distorts the history of the Lehman Brothers' beginnings in the antebellum South and allows the play to evade the moral question of whether making money out of money is more reprehensible than making money out of slaves.

perspectiveThe author of the source text claims that 'The Lehman Trilogy' succumbs to the abstraction it deplores by focusing on capitalism as a transcendent promise of freedom while evading the material conditions of slavery that produced wealth.

claimThe author of the source text claims that 'The Lehman Trilogy' implies capitalism is emancipatory by suggesting it can transform chattel into customers, thereby evading the material conditions of slavery that produced wealth.

quoteJonathan Leaf, writing in an April 'Dispatch' for The New Criterion, defended 'The Lehman Trilogy' by stating: “The great rise of Northern industry took place after the Southern slave economy was destroyed, and after the Confederacy’s wealth was obliterated.”

quoteThe New York Times observed regarding 'The Lehman Trilogy': “By completely omitting something terribly obvious—that the original fortune was made on the backs of slaves—the play suggests that the real evildoers were not the kindly young men from Bavaria who sold cloth,” but the wizards of Wall Street several generations later.

accountIn the play 'The Lehman Trilogy', the character Emanuel tells Henry, 'I don’t want to sell buckets and spades to slaves,' to which Henry responds, 'We sell to whoever will buy. Here in America, everything changes.'

accountThe author of the essay about the Lehman brothers was commissioned by the National Theatre to write for the playbill of 'The Lehman Trilogy', but the author's original draft mentioning the brothers' connection to slavery was cut from the final edit.

accountIn the play 'The Lehman Trilogy', the character Emanuel expresses a refusal to sell goods to slaves, while the character Henry argues that the company should sell to anyone who will buy, reflecting a shift in American commerce.

quoteRichard Cohen of The Washington Post criticized 'The Lehman Trilogy' for failing to mention that Henry, Emanuel, and Mayer Lehman were slave-owners, stating: “it would be tantamount to writing a play about Germany in 1933 and not even mentioning what was happening to the Jews.”

perspectiveThe author of the article argues that The Lehman Trilogy is a "deeply partial" theatrical experience because it underplays the Lehman brothers' deep entanglement in the slave economy, including the fact that the brothers held slaves for at least twenty years.

perspectiveThe author argues that the 'Lehman Trilogy' play incorrectly suggests that an 'abstracted' economy is more morally objectionable than a 'real' one, as this view ignores that the firm's wealth was derived from the slave economy.

'The Lehman Trilogy' and Wall Street's Debt to Slavery nybooks.com The New York Review of Books Jun 11, 2019 9 facts

accountThe play 'The Lehman Trilogy' was written by Italian playwright Stefano Massini in 2013 and later adapted and condensed by director Sam Mendes and playwright Ben Power for the National Theatre in London.

quoteIn the play 'The Lehman Trilogy', the character Philip Lehman declares: "We are merchants of money," followed by the statement, "our flour is money."

perspectiveThe author argues that the classic American immigrant success story, as portrayed in the play 'The Lehman Trilogy', occludes the question of complicity in slavery by superimposing a myth of hard work and social mobility over a system that relied on the deprivation of rights for enslaved people.

perspectiveThe play 'The Lehman Trilogy' is criticized for being a deeply partial narrative because it underplays the Lehman brothers' deep entanglement in the slave economy.

perspectiveThe New York Times criticized 'The Lehman Trilogy' for omitting that the original Lehman Brothers fortune was made using slave labor, arguing that this omission suggests the real evildoers were the later Wall Street figures rather than the original founders.

perspectiveThe author argues that the play 'The Lehman Trilogy' relies on a false distinction between an 'abstracted' economy and a 'real' one, by repressing the fact that the firm's wealth was always derived from the slave-based cotton economy.

claimThe National Theatre's version of the play 'The Lehman Trilogy' omits the history of slavery in the beginnings of the Lehman Brothers firm in the antebellum South.

perspectiveThe author argues that the play 'The Lehman Trilogy' incorrectly marginalizes the role of slavery in the Lehman brothers' history, failing to acknowledge that slavery was an embedded, ordinary part of their business success.

perspectiveRichard Cohen argues that omitting the history of the Lehman brothers as slave-owners in 'The Lehman Trilogy' is comparable to writing a play about Germany in 1933 without mentioning the treatment of Jews.