Review: Enron
A story from real American life
Helsinki City Theatre offers a lesson on financial scams
In advance, it may seem like a bad idea to use theatre to tell a true story about business circles. Especially if the events are so familiar to everyone that the end result is generally known.
However, the rapid rise and plunge of the American giant Enron with the revelation of accounting crimes has been successful at the Helsinki City Theatre. The ordinary story is told by Kari Heiskanen in an unadorned way, but touchingly touching thanks to strong acting.
Written by the thirty-year-old British dramatist Lucy Prebble , Enron has been a huge success in England. It was awarded the TMA Award for Best New Play in 2009. The success has probably aroused interest in a quick interpretation in Finland as well.
Brutal outrageous
The setting and course of events in the play Enron are indeed dramatically familiar in the spirit of Dallas and Dynasty. Enron’s Chairman of the Board (Tom Wentzel) and CEO (Seppo Maijala) are easy-going, respected patrons.
However, something has happened in the spirit of the times, when the unexpectedly aggressive Jeffrey Skilling (Eero Aho) is appointed CEO, even though the company’s own head of foreign operations, Claudia Roe (Milka Ahlroth), seems to be in a strong position.
Within the company, relationships are handled with bribery and openly instrumental sex acts. Jeffrey’s brilliant invention is to team up with innovative CFO Andy Fastow (Iikka Forss). Andy develops a long chain of companies that hides the debts of parent Enron – and at the far end is Andy’s own small paper company.
Strong male actors
Enron is specifically a men’s play. Kari Heiskanen moves a large group of slick businessmen on their shirt sleeves. The fine choreographies alienate the realism of the play to the theatre stage.
Among the actors, two excellently successful groups stand out. Eero Aho and Iikka Forss are sleazy heads. Seppo Maijala, Tom Wentzel and Markku Huhtamo are followers, approvers and even sufferers of corporate practices. Milka Ahlroth’s aspirational Claudia is one of the tough “guys” along with Aho and Forss.
Jeff’s fate brings a theatrical humanity to Enron. When the records begin to dawn, Jeff loses sleep (“The last time I slept properly was when I was 14.”), observes stalkers and eavesdropping everywhere. Another touching parallel is the glimpse of Jeff’s little daughter in nightmarish moments in the scenes. Andy’s nightmare is hiding debts. Two mammoths, raptories, appear on stage, and debts are fed into their mouths.
Helsinki City Theatre’s Enron is a good contemporary play. Several plays by Pasi Lampela that topple the scenes of successful players come to mind, also from the stage of the Helsinki City Theatre. Enron is also suitable as a program for corporate events. However, the viewer – the customer, the employee – should examine the goals of the host company: This is the case elsewhere, not with us! Or also: When a company dares to show how it has been done elsewhere, no one believes that it itself acts as outrageously!