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Enron
" The political theatre of the 21st century has arrived, in some style. " The Times
The most infamous scandal in corporate history. The most vilified figures in the financial world. The most audacious (and destructive) display of greed history has ever seen.
Charting the notorious rise and fall of the eponymous company and its founding partners Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, Lucy Prebble's Enron is a pulse-racing and rage-inducing parable, exploring the limits of greed... or lack thereof.
Mixing classical tragedy with savage comedy, Enron is published in Methuen Drama's Modern Classics series, featuring a new introduction by Natasha Tripney.
The most infamous scandal in corporate history. The most vilified figures in the financial world. The most audacious (and destructive) display of greed history has ever seen.
Charting the notorious rise and fall of the eponymous company and its founding partners Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, Lucy Prebble's Enron is a pulse-racing and rage-inducing parable, exploring the limits of greed... or lack thereof.
Mixing classical tragedy with savage comedy, Enron is published in Methuen Drama's Modern Classics series, featuring a new introduction by Natasha Tripney.
120 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
26 people are currently reading
405 people want to read
About the author
Lucy Prebble
10 books42 followersLucy Prebble is a British playwright. She is the author of the plays The Sugar Syndrome, The Effect and ENRON, and adaptation writer of the television series Secret Diary of a Call Girl.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 90 reviews
January 20, 2023
Tragic farce or a farcical tragedy? Enron collapsed in the largest bankruptcy in financial history. This plays chronicles that collapse. It plays like farce, yet it accurately portrays the fraudulent shenanigans that were behind the scandal. It highlights the characters of Kenneth Lay (chairman and CEO), Jeffery Skilling (COO), and Andrew Fastow (CFO), their interactions, their roles in creating the scandal, and their reactions when it all came crashing down. Equal parts low comedy and high tragedy, this fast moving play will hold your attention like a gruesome train wreck.
May 28, 2021
Billionaires make me so angry I want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon but this explains the stock market crash fantastically, with empathy yet poignant commentary. I never understood why billionaires could just be SO greedy but after reading Enron I kind of get it. Not that this excuses it and I’m so glad of the ending. God, that poor old woman broke my heart. EAT THE RICH, SELFISH W*NKERS, TOO CAUGHT UP IN THEIR TESTOSTERONE FUELED LIES TO NOTICE THE REAL LIVES IMPACTED. Bye.
July 6, 2011
Completely and utterly bonkers.
The entire ENRON case - where the company committed one of the largest cases of financial fraud in history by misrepresenting earnings to improve their performance, modifying balance sheets and a little light laundering - is so bombastic, so ridiculous that it's hard to believe it really happened. It was one of the most successful smoke and mirror shows in business history so it makes sense that Lucy Prebble's play would be built upon the thrill of the illusion, creating a spectacle so large and impossible to hate that it gave the world rose tinted glasses. Prebble fills her play with dance, surreal images and metaphors, bright lights and circus style shenanigans in order to replicate a more literal representation of the carnival ENRON created. How many pieces of drama about business fraud do you know have Jurassic Park references, android accountants, 3 blind mice, messiah imagery and raptors? This also serves to make something as dry and often confusing as financing rather interesting. No mean feat!
It's over the top and often as subtle as a brick but then again it's supposed to be. It's a children's fable, a cautionary tale designed to shock and awe. Prebble's interpretation of Jeffrey Skilling is one of almost Shakespearean proportions - he's a dreamer, one consumed with the thrill of the chase who doesn't mind making himself unpopular in order to reach for the stars, no matter how impossible his dreams may seem. Your mileage will vary on your opinion of him by the play's end (which is a little hampered by being so rushed and a tad convoluted) since, even with such a tragic hero depiction, it's hard to sympathise with a man who ruined so many lives then tried to convince everyone he had no idea what was going on in his company (this reminded me a lot of recent events with the News of the World and Rebekah Brooks & Rupert Murdoch trying to convince everyone they had no idea their team were hacking into the voicemails of a murdered schoolgirl.) I also thought the elements with Skilling's distant relationship with his daughter were too cliched a manner to humanise him.
It's probably not a play that's supposed to be read since it relies so heavily on putting on a bombastic show to dazzle the audience (I'm still kicking myself for missing the play when it came to Edinburgh last year) but even without the visuals, there's a very entertaining tragi-comedy in these pages. It's definitely not for everyone (as witnessed by how badly the play bombed on Broadway, closing after less than a month, even with the lovely Norbert Leo Butz in the leading role) but for those with an open mind and a willingness to go with the flow, ENRON is unlike anything in modern theatre. Lucy Prebble is one to watch, if you ignore that terrible Secret Diary of a Call Girl show she writes.
Here's some YouTube stuff of the play.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1pP90...
The entire ENRON case - where the company committed one of the largest cases of financial fraud in history by misrepresenting earnings to improve their performance, modifying balance sheets and a little light laundering - is so bombastic, so ridiculous that it's hard to believe it really happened. It was one of the most successful smoke and mirror shows in business history so it makes sense that Lucy Prebble's play would be built upon the thrill of the illusion, creating a spectacle so large and impossible to hate that it gave the world rose tinted glasses. Prebble fills her play with dance, surreal images and metaphors, bright lights and circus style shenanigans in order to replicate a more literal representation of the carnival ENRON created. How many pieces of drama about business fraud do you know have Jurassic Park references, android accountants, 3 blind mice, messiah imagery and raptors? This also serves to make something as dry and often confusing as financing rather interesting. No mean feat!
It's over the top and often as subtle as a brick but then again it's supposed to be. It's a children's fable, a cautionary tale designed to shock and awe. Prebble's interpretation of Jeffrey Skilling is one of almost Shakespearean proportions - he's a dreamer, one consumed with the thrill of the chase who doesn't mind making himself unpopular in order to reach for the stars, no matter how impossible his dreams may seem. Your mileage will vary on your opinion of him by the play's end (which is a little hampered by being so rushed and a tad convoluted) since, even with such a tragic hero depiction, it's hard to sympathise with a man who ruined so many lives then tried to convince everyone he had no idea what was going on in his company (this reminded me a lot of recent events with the News of the World and Rebekah Brooks & Rupert Murdoch trying to convince everyone they had no idea their team were hacking into the voicemails of a murdered schoolgirl.) I also thought the elements with Skilling's distant relationship with his daughter were too cliched a manner to humanise him.
It's probably not a play that's supposed to be read since it relies so heavily on putting on a bombastic show to dazzle the audience (I'm still kicking myself for missing the play when it came to Edinburgh last year) but even without the visuals, there's a very entertaining tragi-comedy in these pages. It's definitely not for everyone (as witnessed by how badly the play bombed on Broadway, closing after less than a month, even with the lovely Norbert Leo Butz in the leading role) but for those with an open mind and a willingness to go with the flow, ENRON is unlike anything in modern theatre. Lucy Prebble is one to watch, if you ignore that terrible Secret Diary of a Call Girl show she writes.
Here's some YouTube stuff of the play.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1pP90...
March 27, 2022
This is definitely one of the best plays I’ve read, so much thought and humour went into every scene. Drama-wise this was innovative and fresh, likely deliberate by Prebble to reflect the real company of Enron. The characters were risky but not enough to be questionable, and Skillings development (or lack there of) was the best part of the play.
Capitalism became a laughable, middle-aged soft-sport, and business a synonym for corruption.
Capitalism became a laughable, middle-aged soft-sport, and business a synonym for corruption.
July 13, 2024
A satire on the financialization of capitalism and the hubris of corporate executives.
March 2, 2021
The first scene I had trouble getting into, but after that it was amazing. And horrifying, of course. Especially so, given that Texas, right now, is completely fucked by energy companies, again.
I didn't realize The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron came out in 2003! And the documentary based on it... in 2005, BEFORE the economic meltdown of 2008, which it arguably started. So there's even more context in the play which premiered in 2009.
The play itself is absolutely HUGE in scope, thus more like a musical than your ordinary theater play. I hear it was a huge hit in London, but then a total flop in New York. I guess we'll just... pretend this never happened... come on, it'll _never_ happen again... oh look!
I didn't realize The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron came out in 2003! And the documentary based on it... in 2005, BEFORE the economic meltdown of 2008, which it arguably started. So there's even more context in the play which premiered in 2009.
The play itself is absolutely HUGE in scope, thus more like a musical than your ordinary theater play. I hear it was a huge hit in London, but then a total flop in New York. I guess we'll just... pretend this never happened... come on, it'll _never_ happen again... oh look!
September 25, 2023
I read this in an English Seminar Junior year and loved how it bridged the gap between my two majors — the play doesn’t allow for too many intricacies of the scandal, but it is an excellent high-level into one of crazier fallouts in our lifetime. Piqued my interest and sent me down a rabbit hole.
Read
November 17, 2020not really my cup of tea because im not that interested in business or the financial aspect of it.. The character building was the only interesting thing to it. Scene seven with the security officer where Skilling started acting delusional after losing his power was enjoyable to read, mainly because I really disliked the character. Overall, I think one has to have an interest in the business field in order to actually enjoy this play.
October 22, 2022
FUCK MONEY!!
October 26, 2025
Lucy Prebble’s Enron is unusually successful in translating specialist financial concepts into something theatrically legible to a general audience. The play engages directly with Keynes and Friedman, drawing on their theories to elucidate complicated financial concepts. The Keynesian “beauty contest” analogy, where value is determined not by fundamentals but by what others believe, is particularly effective as both explanation and dramatic device.
The play strikes a pleasing balance between absurdism and sobriety. Fastow’s raptors appear on stage as literal creatures, consuming debt and dollar bills from Skilling’s hands. “Little Arthur”, the junior partner’s junior, narrates the gaps and insinuations that sit between businessmen’s lines. Yet beneath these flourishes, the intent is pointed. Enron works simultaneously as a critique of the hyper-financialisation that accelerated from the 1980s onwards, and as a study of avarice - how power accumulates and what it does to those who hold it.
Most compellingly, the play interrogates questions of culpability. While Skilling and co. are responsible in a literal sense for the company’s collapse, complicates this seemingly straightforward moral picture. The market itself becomes a character. Skilling appears at moments to command it, but the play underscores that “the market” is, ultimately, us. Although we are placed in the position of voyeurs to the excess, Prebble also provides us with an alternative viewpoint - as he is being locked away, Skilling reminds us that speculative bubbles often catalyse the infrastructure investments that underpin genuine technological progress. Although Enron leaves a wreckage of human misery in its wake, Prebble forces us to think about the positive consequences for economic growth associated with the bubble.
Interruptions define the world of the play, and loyalty bends consistently toward capital’s preservation. Market discipline does not come from guardrails or institutions, but from individual incentives - sometimes as simple as one sceptical analyst asking a direct question. In Enron’s case, the collective delusion that sustained the company dissolved under scrutiny, giving way to what was then the largest corporate bankruptcy in US history.
The play strikes a pleasing balance between absurdism and sobriety. Fastow’s raptors appear on stage as literal creatures, consuming debt and dollar bills from Skilling’s hands. “Little Arthur”, the junior partner’s junior, narrates the gaps and insinuations that sit between businessmen’s lines. Yet beneath these flourishes, the intent is pointed. Enron works simultaneously as a critique of the hyper-financialisation that accelerated from the 1980s onwards, and as a study of avarice - how power accumulates and what it does to those who hold it.
Most compellingly, the play interrogates questions of culpability. While Skilling and co. are responsible in a literal sense for the company’s collapse, complicates this seemingly straightforward moral picture. The market itself becomes a character. Skilling appears at moments to command it, but the play underscores that “the market” is, ultimately, us. Although we are placed in the position of voyeurs to the excess, Prebble also provides us with an alternative viewpoint - as he is being locked away, Skilling reminds us that speculative bubbles often catalyse the infrastructure investments that underpin genuine technological progress. Although Enron leaves a wreckage of human misery in its wake, Prebble forces us to think about the positive consequences for economic growth associated with the bubble.
Interruptions define the world of the play, and loyalty bends consistently toward capital’s preservation. Market discipline does not come from guardrails or institutions, but from individual incentives - sometimes as simple as one sceptical analyst asking a direct question. In Enron’s case, the collective delusion that sustained the company dissolved under scrutiny, giving way to what was then the largest corporate bankruptcy in US history.
November 26, 2023
An imaginative dramatization of a downfall that would have been difficult to understand otherwise. I suppose there won’t be a film since it’s supplanted by Succession, The Big Short and other works that help us to understand how these scumbags are fucking with, like, my money somehow? Wtf?
May 8, 2023
When Leah recs I read‼️🫡
May 12, 2023
studied for english
July 4, 2023
Solid read. If I weren’t from Houston or saw the play in person I may like it less, but I enjoyed reading it for sure and it’s a cool story
June 26, 2024
Lucy Prebble was destined for the Succession writing room.
January 3, 2024
Just the basics of Enron with no real depth or lesson or meaning to the story.
December 30, 2022
God I hate capitalism
March 14, 2020
ReListened 14 March 2020
---
An awesome play!
Though it happened in my lifetime, I knew next to nothing about the Enron scandal before reading this play. And AFTER reading this play, I'm not sure to what extent I know the Enron scandal, but I certainly know more at the end than when I started.
That, in a nutshell, is Enron (the play): the basics of the scandal, what led up to it and the major players involved. As with any fictional work based on people who are still alive, I couldn't help but wonder if the Enron players were aware of this play and how they felt about it.
In recent times, a rash of financial world-based stories has cropped up, The Wolf of Wall Street being the first that comes to mind. I've yet to experience much else in the genre, but what strikes me most about Enron (the play) is how . . . different the characters therein think. And, if nothing else, it's a valuable piece of theatre for revealing the inner machinations of an industry that the average Joe knows little about.
But Enron (the play) is so much more than that. Incredibly well-paced, I remained hook with each layer of scandal revealed. And there's a nice expressionistic quality to the play that I quite like. What keeps me away from this particular subject is the fear of dryness: of technical jargon that, though fascinating, requires a lot of mental effort to slog through. Not here, though. Enron (the play) is lights and sound and color. Parties! Excitement! And, among other things, raptors. Freakin' raptors in a play about the world of finance? Count me in!
This was a surprise to discover, but an absolutely pleasant one. Like I say at the top, Enron (the play) is an awesome play, and you should absolutely check it out.
---
An awesome play!
Though it happened in my lifetime, I knew next to nothing about the Enron scandal before reading this play. And AFTER reading this play, I'm not sure to what extent I know the Enron scandal, but I certainly know more at the end than when I started.
That, in a nutshell, is Enron (the play): the basics of the scandal, what led up to it and the major players involved. As with any fictional work based on people who are still alive, I couldn't help but wonder if the Enron players were aware of this play and how they felt about it.
In recent times, a rash of financial world-based stories has cropped up, The Wolf of Wall Street being the first that comes to mind. I've yet to experience much else in the genre, but what strikes me most about Enron (the play) is how . . . different the characters therein think. And, if nothing else, it's a valuable piece of theatre for revealing the inner machinations of an industry that the average Joe knows little about.
But Enron (the play) is so much more than that. Incredibly well-paced, I remained hook with each layer of scandal revealed. And there's a nice expressionistic quality to the play that I quite like. What keeps me away from this particular subject is the fear of dryness: of technical jargon that, though fascinating, requires a lot of mental effort to slog through. Not here, though. Enron (the play) is lights and sound and color. Parties! Excitement! And, among other things, raptors. Freakin' raptors in a play about the world of finance? Count me in!
This was a surprise to discover, but an absolutely pleasant one. Like I say at the top, Enron (the play) is an awesome play, and you should absolutely check it out.
February 22, 2023
4.5 stars
this book is one that i had to read for a level english literature and i didn't expect top enjy it as much as i did (i susually enjoy the poetry elements of the course rather than drama) but i thought that this play was very well written and that prebble's writing was pretty much incredible.
enron is the dramatisation of the fall of the 'world's most innovative company' and it follows the CEO jeffery skilling and his partner in crime, andy fastow, and they gain everything and lose it over the course of nine years. the play was - in my opinion - very enjoyable and i loved prebble's exploration of staging and use of stage directions, a liberty that i never really get otherwise in drama (i'm looking at you, shakespeare, marlowe and euripides). i will definitely be reading again - mostly because i ahve to, the play won't revise itself - but i am sure i will emjoy it a second time.
this book is one that i had to read for a level english literature and i didn't expect top enjy it as much as i did (i susually enjoy the poetry elements of the course rather than drama) but i thought that this play was very well written and that prebble's writing was pretty much incredible.
enron is the dramatisation of the fall of the 'world's most innovative company' and it follows the CEO jeffery skilling and his partner in crime, andy fastow, and they gain everything and lose it over the course of nine years. the play was - in my opinion - very enjoyable and i loved prebble's exploration of staging and use of stage directions, a liberty that i never really get otherwise in drama (i'm looking at you, shakespeare, marlowe and euripides). i will definitely be reading again - mostly because i ahve to, the play won't revise itself - but i am sure i will emjoy it a second time.
May 21, 2011
Best Theatre production I've ever seen! Gotta read it. Especially if American, will blow your mind. How someone can take a financial crisis and make it entertainment, and intellectual entertainment.
December 21, 2020
as far as english lit plays go it isn't bad
June 1, 2023
SO fucking good. Just acted out this entire play in my bedroom and had the time of my life. Ily lucy prebble
October 28, 2024
I’ve always liked plays based on true stories, it raises the stakes and makes the audience really think about everything that is said and done. This play is based on an actual scandal from 2001, where Jeffrey Skilling received the longest sentence for corporate crime (fraud, debt, embezzlement etc) after Enron went bankrupt to the tune of $38 billion.
Firstly, the character of Claudia Ray is fictional, she is put there to represent the conscious of the play among all the money hungry men. She is supposed to become the president of the company, but is passed over and eventually fired. The irony is the only part of the company with any real money left after it went bankrupt is her division, a power plant in India. Whilst Skilling ends up with nothing she gets her money because she sold all her shares early on. She isn’t as present in the second half of the play, which I think is a good representation of the behaviour of the company becoming more and more unethical as there is so humanity or conscious left after Ray leaves.
Obviously Skilling is based on a real man, but I think the way he is written is very effective. He only cares about money, he can’t see past his own ideas, he thinks he is the best and everything he says is gold, he thinks people are made better by his wisdom, he doesn’t look back he just focuses on his greediness. Throughout the play he continually sees no wrongdoing in the illegal acts he signs off on, finding some sort of excuse as to why it’s okay, and he ends up denying the entire thing. The way he speaks to Claudia in the rooftop scene after she’s fired just shows that he has no remorse, he believes he is on top and always rights. He has been compared to a real life Macbeth, some sort of Machiavellian supervillain with too much ambition. I believe the way he is portrayed is perfect at showing his character. We see almost no humanity at all.
This is the first of Lucy Prebble’s plays I have read, and her writing reminds me of Penelope Skinner and the 47th by Mike Bartlett. It is extremely honest, humane and yet still maintains some very abstract and unrealistic elements like the raptors that represent Enron’s illegal actions growing and impacting those in the play. For me it makes plays even more real because it’s putting something so strange alongside something real or truthful, bringing all the more attention to how complex some situations are.
There is also a lot of stage directions including lighting, choreographed moving, overlapping dialogue and cross cutting scenes, I feel like this would be really intriguing to see on a stage and bring up the energy and the impact of the performance even more.
Overall, I really enjoyed this play. It’s written very well, the characters are well-rounded, it’s funny, it’s interesting (especially each scene title) and I think it’s a very successful play version of a real life story.
Firstly, the character of Claudia Ray is fictional, she is put there to represent the conscious of the play among all the money hungry men. She is supposed to become the president of the company, but is passed over and eventually fired. The irony is the only part of the company with any real money left after it went bankrupt is her division, a power plant in India. Whilst Skilling ends up with nothing she gets her money because she sold all her shares early on. She isn’t as present in the second half of the play, which I think is a good representation of the behaviour of the company becoming more and more unethical as there is so humanity or conscious left after Ray leaves.
Obviously Skilling is based on a real man, but I think the way he is written is very effective. He only cares about money, he can’t see past his own ideas, he thinks he is the best and everything he says is gold, he thinks people are made better by his wisdom, he doesn’t look back he just focuses on his greediness. Throughout the play he continually sees no wrongdoing in the illegal acts he signs off on, finding some sort of excuse as to why it’s okay, and he ends up denying the entire thing. The way he speaks to Claudia in the rooftop scene after she’s fired just shows that he has no remorse, he believes he is on top and always rights. He has been compared to a real life Macbeth, some sort of Machiavellian supervillain with too much ambition. I believe the way he is portrayed is perfect at showing his character. We see almost no humanity at all.
This is the first of Lucy Prebble’s plays I have read, and her writing reminds me of Penelope Skinner and the 47th by Mike Bartlett. It is extremely honest, humane and yet still maintains some very abstract and unrealistic elements like the raptors that represent Enron’s illegal actions growing and impacting those in the play. For me it makes plays even more real because it’s putting something so strange alongside something real or truthful, bringing all the more attention to how complex some situations are.
There is also a lot of stage directions including lighting, choreographed moving, overlapping dialogue and cross cutting scenes, I feel like this would be really intriguing to see on a stage and bring up the energy and the impact of the performance even more.
Overall, I really enjoyed this play. It’s written very well, the characters are well-rounded, it’s funny, it’s interesting (especially each scene title) and I think it’s a very successful play version of a real life story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 28, 2023
Enron is a magnificently imaginative play combining documentarian realism with expressionistic flourishes. It’s really hard to categorize the play – it depends what scene you open. It features rather naturalistic dialogue alongside the appearance of prehistoric raptors, a board of directors wearing pig heads, Siamese twin Lehman Brothers, ventriloquist and dummy Arthur Anderson, and so forth. I honesty don’t know how it was performed with things like this. It must have had a relatively huge cast for a contemporary (non-musical) today.
Plus, it’s fast paced and full of lively characters. I had a hard time putting it down. It makes a complex, boring financial story interesting and understandable.
It has all the elements of a great play … except one. I don’t think it really breaks through the surface of the story. The characters have flesh, the plot is excellent, but what does it all mean? Bashing Enron and its leaders is not hard to do – they’re all crooks after all. Is the play an indictment of all capitalism (especially the American variety)? Or is there something unique about these characters and this situation? Having unraveled the complexities of the case, the play doesn’t really leave the reader/viewer with anything other than “those guys are crooks” or “capitalism is all a fraud,” and both are gross oversimplifications. Personally, I look at capitalism like I look at democracy. It’s the worse form of economics except for all the others.
But I quibble. This is an incredibly good work that I highly recommend.
Plus, it’s fast paced and full of lively characters. I had a hard time putting it down. It makes a complex, boring financial story interesting and understandable.
It has all the elements of a great play … except one. I don’t think it really breaks through the surface of the story. The characters have flesh, the plot is excellent, but what does it all mean? Bashing Enron and its leaders is not hard to do – they’re all crooks after all. Is the play an indictment of all capitalism (especially the American variety)? Or is there something unique about these characters and this situation? Having unraveled the complexities of the case, the play doesn’t really leave the reader/viewer with anything other than “those guys are crooks” or “capitalism is all a fraud,” and both are gross oversimplifications. Personally, I look at capitalism like I look at democracy. It’s the worse form of economics except for all the others.
But I quibble. This is an incredibly good work that I highly recommend.
August 9, 2020
I’m reading a few plays, as it’s like going to the theatre in your head. I didn’t see ENRON on stage, but it dazzles on the page. As with her Litvinenko play last year, A Very Expensive Poison, Prebble turns an oppressively dry, serious news story into a funny, phantasmagorical and multi-textual extravaganza.
It's about the energy giant and the three men who puffed it up, until its public image – and its stock price – bore no relation to reality. There are bastards in the boardroom and raptors in the basement, as the company begins to eat its own debt, drunk on insane free market economics, and engineering blackouts across California.
This one doesn’t seem as entirely resistant to cliché as my favourite Prebble play, The Effect – the scenes in the third act featuring the prostitute and the woman who’s lost her savings seeming oddly on-the-nose – but judging a theatrical production by its script is like judging an album by reading the lyrics booklet, so it may play differently in person.
Even on the page ENRON feels important and original, full of neat symbolism, vividly-sketched characters and those distinctive, subversive, counter-intuitive Prebblian epigrams. She’s just one of my favourite writers.
It's about the energy giant and the three men who puffed it up, until its public image – and its stock price – bore no relation to reality. There are bastards in the boardroom and raptors in the basement, as the company begins to eat its own debt, drunk on insane free market economics, and engineering blackouts across California.
This one doesn’t seem as entirely resistant to cliché as my favourite Prebble play, The Effect – the scenes in the third act featuring the prostitute and the woman who’s lost her savings seeming oddly on-the-nose – but judging a theatrical production by its script is like judging an album by reading the lyrics booklet, so it may play differently in person.
Even on the page ENRON feels important and original, full of neat symbolism, vividly-sketched characters and those distinctive, subversive, counter-intuitive Prebblian epigrams. She’s just one of my favourite writers.
April 18, 2018
I haven't been including many plays in my reading challenges lately so I figure I would change that and begin with this one. I was old enough to know the whole Enron scandal but never really knew the events that lead up to the great scandal. I also remember seeing that this production was up on Broadway and was very curious to check it out because it seemed very surreal at the time for me to see a production about a real event to include like a singing chorus and raptors running around the stage.
I'm glad that my library had a digital recording of the production when it ran in LA because even though I would have enjoyed it if I read the script, I don't think I would have appreciated it more were it not for the recording to know how it was played out. It was definitely a unique way of telling a real live event and it definitely got the point across about how this company ended up where it ended up.
I truly enjoyed the recording and I treated it as listening to a very well executed and produced podcast. I might be interested in listening to more production recordings in this manner.
I'm glad that my library had a digital recording of the production when it ran in LA because even though I would have enjoyed it if I read the script, I don't think I would have appreciated it more were it not for the recording to know how it was played out. It was definitely a unique way of telling a real live event and it definitely got the point across about how this company ended up where it ended up.
I truly enjoyed the recording and I treated it as listening to a very well executed and produced podcast. I might be interested in listening to more production recordings in this manner.
December 22, 2020
Enron is the dramatized retelling of the story of Enron, a company that... come to think of it I'm still not really sure what. I mean, I know that they were an energy and commodities trading company but I'm still not really sure what they did. They did something to do with creating shadow companies to make it appear as if they didn't have any debt? Look, the main problem with this play is that it requires you to already have an intimate knowledge of Enron, Jeffrey Skilling, and a whole lot more. I simply do not, and maybe that's my fault for not doing proper research before reading this play, but it does make a lot of what happens kind of confusing.
Aside from that, however, this play lacks compelling characters. The dialogue is crackling, with a lot of really great lines, but the people who are saying them don't ever really feel fully formed. I mean, this is the issue with reading a play in general, and I'm sure that seeing this staged with some really great actors would make this a more engaging experience.
Aside from that, however, this play lacks compelling characters. The dialogue is crackling, with a lot of really great lines, but the people who are saying them don't ever really feel fully formed. I mean, this is the issue with reading a play in general, and I'm sure that seeing this staged with some really great actors would make this a more engaging experience.
July 1, 2022
This describes a fetid cesspit of humanity at its worst, filled with toxic masculinity, crass behaviour and obnoxiousness as standard. The people in here are so bad as to be one-dimensional caricatures, which I suppose is partly the point Prebble is making.
Like many satires this may lack subtlety, but these were not exactly subtle people. This is a maddening and entertaining enough little play, which makes its point well enough. And at least we never have to worry about anything like this ever happening again...
Only joking...obviously...
January 12, 2023
I read this for english as we are comparing it to doctor faustus and i actually quite liked it. I thought it was too short, as there seemed to be a build up of the rivalry between Roe and Skilling, but it ended quickly when she was fired. I get that plays take longer to act out than read, but i feel like there could be more to it. I found the characters quite fascinating and how they justified their actions, and i had never heard of enron. I’m glad Pebble helped me understand some of the business terms and what the actual scandal was.
August 24, 2023
I thought this started very strong and became a little unfocused by the end. I wanted to read this because I knew Prebble wrote on Succession, and I think her work there does a better job at laughing at the characters while still empathizing. I started to feel the judgement too much by the end, as it became more overbearing than honest. I also did not love the raptors… wonder if a strong directorial choice could make them work, though.
A great subject done well - but I was left wanting a bit more.
A great subject done well - but I was left wanting a bit more.
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