The landmark National Theatre and Neal Street production of The Lehman Trilogy, directed by Academy Award, Tony Award, and Golden Globe winner Sam Mendes, is now playing a limited encore season at the Gillian Lynne Theatre in London’s West End. Hailed by The New York Times as ‘a genuinely epic production’, The Lehman Trilogy is a sweeping story of a family spanning generations and a company that changed the world.
Rory McGregor is a British theatre director based in New York and London. He holds an Masters of Fine Arts in Theatre Directing from Columbia University. He is an associate director for The Lehman Trilogy (also West End and Broadway) for the National Theatre. We sit down with Rory to discuss the show, which is showing at Gillian Lynne Theatre until 5th January.
- You’ve worked extensively on both Broadway and the West End with The Lehman Trilogy. How has the show evolved in its various international performances, and what new dynamics can audiences expect from this West End run?
The beauty of this play is that every time we go back into it, it deepens and deepens. With every new company new discoveries are made. It truly is a remarkable piece of writing. When Sam asked me to direct this newest version I knew I wanted to make the most detailed and alive version of the show that I possibly could. It has such a strong framework built over years which we know works sublimey – it moves almost like a piece of music or choreography – but inside of that structure there is such freedom for creativity from our three actors. John, Howard and Aaron have an incredible chemistry and bring a real playfulness to the show, so I feel as though the storytelling is very alive and active in a very exciting way. They have really made it their own and it was a pleasure to rehearse with them. On top of that, we are always tweaking things – even six years on from the original production! In my rehearsal process, Sam would come and watch a run in the room and be struck with a new idea for us to try out for a scene or a new line that we might want to add. He’s also always been very open to my ideas – meaning this version definitely has my flavour of theatre and alchemy with the three brothers.
- The Lehman Brothers’ story is deeply intertwined with American history. How do you balance the epic scale of this narrative with the intimate, personal stories of the Lehman family?
I actually think that the answer to this question is in Sam Mendes’ first design meeting with Es Devlin. He wrote five precepts on a sheet of card with a marker pen which became the basis of the design process for Lehman:
1. Animate the Idea, 2. Make concrete the shape of history, 3. Understand the order present in chaos, 4. Understand it in your head.. .. because you can feel it in your gut, 5. Reveal the simple human needs behind the creation of complex human systems.
When rehearsing Lehman I think about the 5th precept a lot as for me it is the core of how the play functions. The 5th precept really guides the way Lehman is presented and structured, the intimate and the personal are so intertwined with these huge economic and political systems that are created and so cannot be divorce from one another. In my opinion, one of the great successes of the show is that we tend to think, in society, of these large machinations as being divorced from human considerations, but in Lehman we see how enormous financial and political decisions are constantly made for deeply personal reasons. After Philip says that Lehman is going to build the Panama Canal, that scene is immediately followed by the birth of his son Bobby, who will one day succeed him, but in that moment, we see a brief glimpse of the joy of family for him.
Family and tradition are central to the story of Lehman. And as the family and subsequently the business loses connection to tradition, religion and family, the human aspect is gone and is replaced purely by numbers. What the business meant to the original three brothers is stripped away and gone.
- Working with Sam Mendes as an associate director must be an incredible experience. What have you learned from collaborating with him, particularly on such a monumental production?
I’ve always tried to be very intentional with the directors I associate for, only working with people who I truly admire. I believe that great artists come from great mentorship and want my associate work to inform my own work as a director. I’ve had the great privilege of working with Sam for over four years and really rising through the ranks of Lehman – starting as the US Associate Director when the show went to Broadway and LA, and then being asked to direct the International Tour and now becoming the West End Director. Sam has always given me a tremendous amount of freedom and trust, meaning I’ve been able to conduct the rehearsal process in the way that I want and find my own language inside Lehman. To have started working alongside him and then to have been entrusted with taking Lehman on its next steps on an International Tour and then back into the West End has been one of the great honours of my career.
It has been a gift to witness his creative process and see how his mind works, I’ve learnt a great deal from him and his leadership. The thing I most admire about Sam is his ability to communicate an incredibly complicated note to an actor with a real simplicity and efficiency. In one simple sentence he is able to tell an actor everything they need to know. As directors I think we are always prone to waffle, and I’ve always felt he only speaks when necessary and only says what is necessary. It is unbelievably rewarding to admire a director’s work for your entire career, get in a room with him and see that he is at the top of the game for very good reasons. He is the best at what we do. And it pushes you to work harder and be better everyday.
- Es Devlin’s set design plays a crucial role in The Lehman Trilogy. How does the visual and physical world she creates enhance the storytelling and atmosphere of the show?
There may be three actors playing the three brothers on stage, but in reality there are five actors in total which make the magical music box of Lehman tick. We have the incredible pianist playing Nick Powell’s composition live every night and underscoring the actors, and of course the environment created by Es Devlin and Luke Halls (who designed the video). All these elements work together to create the magic of the show.
The set in particular evokes the Lehman office at the brink of its collapse in 2008. Everything that you see on the set has a function and a purpose, and the three brothers use everything from board markers to flowers to banker boxes to tell their story. It is going back to the fundamentals of storytelling, how can you tell a huge story with very little? The fact that our huge beautiful glass box then revolves, allows us to create dynamic and different stage pictures in the same environment, and also suggesting the passing of time or of location. Luke’s video gives us a sense of time and place in a really specific and simple way. And as the play grows and grows the simplest gesture such as integrating colour into the video or having the video move quickly – becomes a visual feast for the audience.
- You’ve directed a range of productions, from classic Shakespeare to modern works. How do the themes of ambition, legacy, and collapse in The Lehman Trilogy resonate with contemporary audiences today?
It’s no secret that The Lehman Trilogy was first performed in English in 2018, and that Stefano Massini’s original version dates back to 2013, and so there is always the question of relevancy – if the play will land in the same way as it did at the beginning. The sad reality is that in 2024, the giddy sheen of capitalism which was felt by many in other eras, such as the 1980s, has long worn off and been replaced by inflation, stagnant wages and lower standards of living. Many are now asking, how does this system actually benefit me? I think to really understand something you have to start at the beginning, understand how it was built. The Lehmans by no means invented these systems but they participated in them and what they built was goliath, and our play deconstructs that and shows you the human face underneath. I think that is vital for understanding our current world.
