Review: Enron

Enron is up to date

There isn’t that big excitement in the life of a regular person, the one that has to do with money and its fluctuations. Whether the price will rise or fall… But now the stock markets have been visited and the prices have been tested. What did you get out of it?

So much flashed on the minus side that I lost the last faith in öky companies!

British dramatist Lucy Prebble’s play is an event in the world, because it is based on a true story, the rise and fall of the energy giant Enron. The stage is an excellent place to put the cat on the table just for the sake of information, because even though the flood of information is so great these days, it is also unstoppable. Here in the far north, people don’t necessarily realise what is really going on somewhere in Houston and its cabinets. An illustrative presentation of the bubble and its bursting will perhaps take a toll on the number of people who will be pulled out of the nose in Finland as well.

The subsidiaries established by Enron helped with tax evasion, guaranteed free currency transfers and anonymity. The tactic also included close ties to political decision-makers, and the company understood election funding. The billions in winnings were an illusion, in fact they were going butt-slipping and fast. Enron, one of America’s largest companies, filed for bankruptcy in late 2001, and the trial began in 2006.

Of the main accused bosses, Jeffrey Skilling received the highest sentence, 24 years and four months in prison, and he was ordered to pay $26 million to Enron’s pension fund. Shareholders lost almost everything and thousands of employees lost their pension savings. The scales were in perfect disproportion, the pigs were rich/left bare on the trees.

But it is still above all a good stage work, which the Helsinki City Theatre has treated with curiosity and piety. The cinematic episodes directed by Kari Heiskanen carry the subject in an interesting way, and the gigantic and desolate nature of the stage creates an excellent contrast to the densely atmospheric events. Some wander there – in the money circles – as if they were at home, others go to bed, and few are those who seek reasonable answers and explanations. Analysts are also a lap behind.

Eero Aho’s Jeffrey Skilling is a streamlined performance. Head in the clouds, firm belief in one’s own exceptional abilities and without conscience. Success is pleasing and intoxicating. Aho’s replication is coolly clear, and he swims in Skilling’s patterns like a fish in water. Seppo Maijala is just as credible as CEO Kenneth Lay. He’s softer, brighter and more gullible, but definitely a company man. Maijala has appeal and authority, she takes over the space with character.

Mature professionalism is also brought in by Tom Wentzel. Who wouldn’t trust the services of such a charming and competent lawyer? And a pleasant surprise was Iikka Forss’s cunning and smooth-talking Andy Fastow, a master of “stock market poker” but ultimately not very loyal to his colleagues.

Rauno Ahonen brought his own colour to the picture with his double expertise and interpretation, and the puppet character he mastered also had a weighty word to say.

Women, beautiful of course, play second fiddle in Enron. But sexily, of course, and taking advantage of the aforementioned help. However, calculation is noted, and in the end, a strong will and intelligence do not weigh much. The most demanding of the female roles has been entrusted to Milka Ahlroth, who handles the task in a nuanced way.

The performance has inventive details – including box and soap bubble symbolism – that give the story an entertaining dimension. The fact that the characters occasionally seek out the microphone as narrators creates quiet spaces. And the “chorus” of young men and their cheerfully mastered choreography, as well as the emphatic concretization of the stock market game – sometimes with the cacophony of money halls, sometimes with gigantic fast-moving graphics – structure Antti Mattila’s stage image, which is at odds with this particular execution. Excellent execution.