THE LEHMAN TRILOGY - Edward Gero - Guthrie Theater

THE LEHMAN TRILOGY - Edward Gero - Guthrie Theater

The Lehman Trilogy is now in rehearsal at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Stefano Massini’s epic multi-generational story, adapted by Ben Power and directed by Arin Arbus, chronicles the true-to-life rise of three Jewish immigrant brothers who built their own version of the American Dream from a small fabric business in 1844 to the international financial firm whose spectacular collapse in 2008 sent global markets spiraling out of control. The Guthrie Theater production includes Edward Gero, Mark Nelson and William Sturdivant in the cast of three who play the Lehman brothers and recreate all of the over fifty other roles.

Edward Gero’s performance is another highlight in a distinguished, award-winning career spanning forty-seven years with upwards to one hundred fifty roles and counting. In our 2018 CONVERSATION, Gero was in the middle of a run of The Originalist at Court Theatre in Chicago. Last season in Washington, he appeared in Angels in America at Arena Stage and earlier this year, in the critically-acclaimed production of The Lehman Trilogy at the Shakespeare Theatre Company that has now transferred to the Guthrie and opening September 19, 2024.

There is much more in our CONVERSATION about the inner workings of the show and balancing a professional career with the rigors of serving as a full professor at George Mason University from one of America’s most accomplished and gifted actors, Edward Gero.

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About The Lehman Trilogy …
Edward Gero: “The Lehman Trilogy is an amazing piece of writing. It's a play that covers the arc of the Lehman Brothers who arrived in 1844 in America and we follow the family over several generations, 150 years, through to the collapse of the Lehman Corporation in 2008. … we're really seeing the story of the rise of America and capitalism through the immigrant experience of these three men and their descendants. It's a remarkable play … three acts. … in a Greek trilogy form. Three actors. Three hours. We never leave the stage and we play the three brothers and a total of probably fifty other characters by the end of the evening.”

On the Washington DC production …
EG: “We did the play back in March (2024) at the Shakespeare Theater Company in Washington, directed by Arin Arbus. That was really daunting. It's a lot of text, right? … each one of us have roles that are longer than King Lear, probably close to Hamlet. So, it took two months to learn it, because it's not just straight dialogue. It's narrative. You become characters. It's a juggling act really and so that style of storytelling was very different. It's very Greek. I think that's my sense of it. It's like, let's gather around a fire and we're going to tell you the story of America through the eyes of these three brothers, and we'll take on the character as we go. We had maybe three and a half, four weeks of rehearsal to put it together. So we had to work ahead of time to be ready to get it up. … we worked very quickly and efficiently. And the design for those who have seen the Broadway production—it's now reopening on the West End—Sam Mendez directed it originally in a sort of acrylic box that moved very sort of contemporary. We did it on the proscenium. It was more open.”

Moving the show to the Guthrie …
EG: “We were very fortunate that the Guthrie was interested in bringing our team up here. We had to replace one actor. René Thornton Jr. was very fortunate to book (the national tour of) Harry Potter. We have William Sturdivant an actor from the Minneapolis area who's terrific. … Mark Nelson and I, who have done the play before, are finding different nuances. But we're shifting from a proscenium to a thrust. So that's challenging to unlearn what we knew … to open it up and change the space. And there's a much more intimate, direct connection to the audience in this configuration than the proscenium. It's the same set. They had to make some modifications. There are a lot of rear projections. So there is a sort of proscenium section of this thrust and the rear projection screens are there.”

Playing Multiple Characters …
EG: “The challenging ones are the ones that you have to turn on a dime and then let it go. And you have to want to find some way to establish it as quickly as you can. … changing the voice or changing the physicality, that's the challenge of keeping the balls up in the air. It really is juggling. Not only is it epic, Homeric—because the original novel is written by an Italian—there's also the Virgil tradition,. There is the Commedia tradition. There is Fellini. There is circus. It really feels like a circus. You're juggling lines, you're juggling characters and the magic of it is to be able to transform in a beat and then let it go in a beat.”

Performing at the Guthrie Theater…
EG: ”I've wanted to work here since I was a young actor. Many of the actors that I admired and watched and emulated and learned from and, in some cases, had the privilege of working with came from the Guthrie, whether it was with Tony Guthrie or Michael Lanham, Garland Wright, Joe Dowling. I have worked with Joe several times. It has been a destination. … The regional theater movement was sort of anchored by Arena Stage in Washington, the Goodman in Chicago, and the Guthrie in Minneapolis. And it took me forty years, but I finally got the trifecta. … It's a thrill and the new building is spectacular. The architecture is really interesting. I have not had a chance yet to explore Minneapolis because we are in rehearsal, but I am looking forward to maybe getting to a Vikings game.”

The Future …
EG: “There are some roles I'd like to do. I would like to get a shot at a play like Death of Salesman … or Prospero or Falstaff. I've done Falstaff in (Henry IV) Part 1. I'd like to finish that. Lear. … There are a few still out there … some got away… like Brutus and Iago, but, you know, maybe there's a chance for Iago. I don't know. I'll do the older version of Iago. Maybe he's just an old grouchy man, who knows.?”  

This content has been edited for clarity and length.

PHOTO|Joshua Cummins

GUTHRIE THEATER
presents

THE LEHMAN TRILOGY

September 14 (Previews)
September 19-October 13, 2024

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AN HONORABLE ASSASSIN - Steve Hamilton

Nick Mason lives on the edge in a non-stop state of chaos and intrigue. He could still be serving out his twenty-five years to life sentence in federal prison if not for the influence of Darius Cole, a powerful Chicago mob boss who arranges Mason’s early release to do his bidding on the outside as one of the most lethal hitmen in the business. It all came with an enormous cost in personal freedom and as the death toll rose, Mason was desperate to find a way out while protecting those closest to him.

When we talked to author Steve Hamilton in 2017 following the critically-acclaimed introduction of Mason in the thriller The Second Life of Nick Mason, and the second book in the series, Exit Strategy, Hamilton was well along on the next book in the series that would take Mason far from his midwest roots to a location halfway around the world.

STEVE HAMILTON

As the soon-to-be-released An Honorable Assassin opens, Mason arrives in Jakarta, Indonesia under the operational control of a new organization who thrust him immediately into a face-to-face confrontation with Hashim Baya, one of the most infamous sponsors of international terrorism who also holds a top spot on Interpol’s “Red Notices List.”  Everyone is out for the elusive Baya who leads Mason, his newly appointed watchdogs Torino and Luna, and Martin Sauvage, an Interpol agent with a personal score to settle, from the rooftops of Jakarta’s most exclusive locales to the seedy back alley’s and across the tip of East Asia to Singapore and the Philippines in a non-stop, action packed tale of intrigue filled with the explosive twists and diabolic turns that have been the hallmark of Hamilton’s cinematic storytelling style.     

The two-time Edgar Award-winning and NY Times bestselling author of the Alex McKnight series, joined the CONVERSATION on August 12 in advance of an extensive tour to talk more about An Honorable Assassin and the deadly challenges ahead for Nick Mason and the unknown organization that holds his fate in their hands.    

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Nick Mason in Jakarta …

Steve Hamilton: “The whole point of that second book, which was called Exit Strategy—and it's really the title that sort of gave it away—was that he's been living in this life where he's been released from prison, but with this huge catch that anytime the phone rings, he has to answer it… then he has to go do whatever he's told to do. … He's looking for a way out. And without giving away how that book ends, I can say that the idea is that even if you free yourself from the person that you think is the master, you always find out that there's someone above him that he was indebted. And so now you just have a new master. And the very last scene of that book—and I can say what that was—he was on an airplane flying to Jakarta of all places, the most remote foreign place that he can ever imagine. In his mind, it's on the other side of the world and now he's working for this new organization. … and An Honorable Assassin picks up literally with him getting off the plane in a place that he's never been. He has no idea where he is or what he has to do.”

Torino and Luna …

SH: “They're basically his new teammates. He goes right into the fire. He literally gets off the plane, not even over the jet lag and he's instantly dropped into a really bad situation. And he learns that these are the people that he has to trust his life to. And it's not a very comfortable feeling because that first mission, that first job, doesn't go very well. Nick Mason is someone who is used to acting on his own. He's used to planning things very carefully. So, on top of being in a place he doesn't know and languages he doesn't know, all of a sudden now he has to be part of this team of people that he doesn't know. It's pretty obvious to him early on that he's not going to last long if he keeps doing what these guys tell him to do.”

Hashim Baya …

SH: “Hashim Baya is sort of a play on words. The Indonesian word for “crocodile.” It's very similar to that and why they call him “The Crocodile.” … He's someone who treats terror as a commodity… he invests in it. He funds it. And he directs it. He really doesn't have any allegiance to anybody. For most of the book, he's just this shadow. This cipher who Mason is trying to hunt down because he has to. Because that's the only way he can survive. That's the only way that he can protect his family.”

Martin Sauvage …

SH: “He is an Interpol agent who has his own personal reasons to be hunting down this same guy. And of course, even though they have the same goal, ultimately they're going about it in obviously very different ways.”

Interpol …

SH: “The movies don't do a great job of showing you what Interpol really does. They will show these Interpol guys running around with guns and making arrests and shooting people. And that's not at all how it works. If you work for Interpol, which is based in France, of course, you are sent to a country to assist with law enforcement, and you basically have no powers at all. None. You can't arrest people. You can't, God forbid, shoot people. You're just sort of an advisor and that's a really tough position to put him into. … he has certain powers maybe that Nick doesn't, but on the other hand, he's much more limited because Nick can just go shoot (Baya) if he ever finds him. And Savauge can't even show a badge and arrest him.”

An Honorable Assassin …

SH: “Luna is this other assassin who came from this really tough place. She has a different sort of ethos than he does. And she sort of makes fun of him a little bit for trying to be an honorable assassin, as if that's a possibility. As if that's something that you can even be. But he's trying so hard to hold onto that one piece of himself, even though he is forced to do all of these terrible things. He has always tried to hold onto that one piece of himself, which I hope is what helps you maybe root for him … that you can see that he's just in this really bad situation.”

The Narrative …

SH: “It's all fiction. I started writing this book before the invasion of Ukraine. It was obviously well before what's happening in Palestine and I wasn't thinking about the real world that much. Even though I do refer to real groups that were operating in that part of the world. … you can't even imagine or create fiction that would outdo just how upside down things can get in the world right now. And I'm very much aware of that … I hope nobody thinks that I'm taking any of that lightly or using it for cheap effect because, this kind of thing is happening all over the world. And there are people who will just do anything because somebody tells them that someone else deserves to die. And it's the most horrifying thing I can imagine.”

This content has been edited for clarity and length.

An Honorable Assassin, the third installment in Steve Hamilton's Nick Mason series debuts August 27th from Blackstone Publishing and is on sale wherever books are sold. An extensive book tour in Scottsdale, Arizona, New York, and throughout Michigan and other locations, is scheduled through September 2024, with new dates being added. For more information on the book and the tour, visit: www.authorstevehamilton.com.

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2017 CONVERSATIONS PODCAST - STEVE HAMILTON -EXIT STRATEGY

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