Enron, Noël Coward, London

01/27/2010 (4 h 27 m ago)

Noel Coward, London In recent years, the stock of director Rupert Goold, the closest thing British theatre has to its own PT Barnum, has risen so high that he is regularly mentioned as a future artistic director of the National Theatre. The bubble shows no sign of bursting with his West End transfer of Lucy Prebble's all-singing, all-dancing morality play about the collapse of Enron, the energy company – a piece so confident it's astonishing that it is only her second play. Audiences that put their money into this ticket are guaranteed a return on a show that is exuberantly staged as a cross between a vaudevillian nightmare and roistering Jacobean City comedy. Of course, it was that elusive "sure thing" that investors – ever gullible in their pursuit of a quick buck – thought they were onto when they put their money into Enron, the Texas energy giant which was America's seventh biggest corporation before it collapsed in 2001, costing 20,000 people their jobs and many more their life savings. Under the leadership of company president Jeffrey Skilling (played by Sam West, who is remarkable in what is a remarkable cast), Enron changed from a company selling something real – gas – to one selling hot air and dreams. Like Goold's playful, glossy production, which offers up the Lehmann Brothers bank as a Siamese twin double act, and the company auditors, Arthur Anderson, as a ventriloquist's dummy, Enron was a box of tricks: an illusion created from smoke and mirrors that in effect hid its debts in the basement, portrayed as a shadowy place where raptors prowl, devouring dollar bills. But whereas too much illusion may be bad for the bottom line, it's a very good thing in theatre; and while, in other circumstances, you might argue that the overlay of visual tricks and video amount to show-off distractions, in this show they are put to terrific use to create the dizzying and seductive spectacle of capitalism itself. Accountancy does not, as a rule, lend itself to gripping theatre, but in Anthony Ward's design the figures flash before our eyes in mesmerising digital displays that, together with the choreographed ballets of traders, capture the giddy euphoria of the markets. The audience doesn't have to do the maths because Prebble has done it for us, bringing clarity to a complex story, and cleverly blurring the line between fact and fiction to considerable dramatic effect. Rating: 4/5 Theatre West End Enron Lyn Gardner guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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