I went into this play expecting dull, well-worn rants
against capitalism. In some respects, I
was not surprised. But the cast and
staging was phenomenal, injecting levity and creativity into what otherwise
could have been a monotonous story. (How
does one turn financial accounting decisions into a gripping drama?)
As for the cast, Paul Schneider was a very credible Ken
Lay. Connie Lee (who happens to be
Schneider’s wife) was simply fabulous as Claudia Roe, the hard-driving rival to
Jeffrey Skilling. Chris Shonka and Matthew Pyle also turned in
creditable performances as Andy Fastow and Jeff Skilling, respectively.
The costumes were wonderful, blending technology, light, and
whimsy which added to the story. (The three
blind mice who appeared as Enron directors, the geek and ventriloquist dummy
that appeared for Arthur Andersen, and the Raptors that appeared frequently
throughout the latter part of the play, were especially wonderful. Not to
mention two Lehman Brothers joined as Siamese twins.) In short, it was a pleasantly engaging
production that reflected genuine artistry by the director, all of the
performers, and the costume designers and stage managers.
But Lucy Preeble, the writer, could have given them more,
which would have made it a better play. She
would have done well to resist the clichés and seemingly obligatory disrespect
offered toward George W. Bush. Those
listing toward the Left simply can’t avoid casting aspersions on Bush as the
cause of all which vexes them. As
Skilling and the Enron team longed for deregulation of electricity markets, the
Bush v. Gore contest was portrayed as a turning point in the company’s
future. Preeble has Skilling tell us
that Enron got along fine with Clinton, but Gore scares him. Is she suggesting that a Gore victory would
somehow have stopped the Enron debacle?
Al Gore has gone on to become a venture capitalist and
investor. His twenty-percent stake in Current
TV, which has been sold to Al Jazeera, is in the news today because of disputes
over payment of nearly $500 million. He
may talk a good game about environmental issues (while at the same time jetting
about and creating a massive carbon footprint), but he is no enemy of
capitalist greed.
Deregulation began in the deep Blue state of California, governed
by the RINO Terminator, not with the federal government. Bad experiences in California are no fault of Bush. Preeble apparently cannot fathom government run by democrats as being inept at governing. Instead, she paints them as the friends of
the little people, who are clearly the losers after Enron implodes.
But politics aside, Preeble’s development of Skilling
particularly shows her need to cast aspersion on a belief in free markets as
the basis for human progress. In fact,
markets ultimately worked very well in exposing Enron’s failures – it just took
time for the information to come out. Markets
require information, which was not being provided. And markets involve humans and all their
foibles. Many people were cajoled by
their own vanity into going along when they could not admit they did not
understand how Enron was making money (when in fact, it was not). Pride and vanity are not restricted to
capitalist pigs – plenty of socialists have these problems, too. Preeble apparently finds no irony in a U.S. Senator
telling Skilling that the U.S. Government will not tolerate their bad behavior.
The play is still a lot of fun, which was well staged and
acted. But the writer left the most
important issues unfocused and, of course, unresolved, while she tilted the
dialogue in favor of invectives about corporate greed and self-aggrandizement. We can all agree that dishonesty and deception
give rise to harms that extend far beyond the executive suite and into the
lives of many average folks who are just trying to earn a living. But many executives do not do these things,
and instead confer countless benefits on their communities through the
capitalist model. Those executives get
adulation when the going is good, but when the populist sentiment turns against
them, look out for the mob.
What is the real solution for the problems presented by dishonesty? Is a vastly empowered regulatory state really the answer? Do we really trust government actors to behave competently and honestly with extensive powers, particularly when it is quite clear that they are often co-opted as participants in the nefarious deeds of the greedy capitalists? Or should we opt for a more limited government role, with greater personal vigilance and diversification to protect ourselves, recognizing that some bad apples will succeed despite the best efforts of government? Wouldn’t we be better off in a world where government did not have so much power over the success or failure of private ventures? After all, regulatory costs can harm the working folks, too, when they cannot get jobs.
It seems that Ms. Preeble, like others on the Progressive Left,
pines for a world in which all wrongs are righted and all losses are
compensated through the intervention of a big and benevolent government. Unfortunately,
that world does not exist, and if we think that empowering government to
protect us from all of the downside risks in this life will make life better,
we had better wake up and smell the coffee.
Those government actors are just as prone to be deeply flawed as the
capitalists they seek to regulate. Ultimately,
we need to ensure we do not lose sight on the importance of character
development. Those lessons our clergy
and our mothers and fathers have been teaching us may turn out to be more
important than we think.
Criticism aside, I encourage you to enjoy this play for yourselves. Some may find a few scenes of frank sexual
dialogue to be off-putting, and there is ample profanity. But real actors playing their hearts out
convey a dimension of humanity that cannot be duplicated on the screen. Kudos to all of them for their fine efforts.
EAM
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