Theatre review: Enron

Enron charts the natural gas company’s journey to becoming a multi-billion dollar stock market sensation and, ultimately, a byword for corporate fraud. As the play opens, we see former CEO Jeffrey Skilling vying with fictional rival Claudia Roe to become president of the firm. Skilling has a vision to transform the company from one selling “things you can hold” to a trading company – one that will eventually end up selling the illusion of its own profitability.

The excitement of being part of the “Enron family”, against a backdrop of the 1990s US economic boom, is conveyed by some terrific set pieces, sound tracked with all-American rock ’n’ roll. Traders bathed in dizzying projections of rising stock prices show the all-consuming seduction of growth, while a phallic lightsaber fight illustrates the macho posturing that led to rolling blackouts in California, as Enron sent post-deregulation electricity prices soaring. All the while, a screen above the stage charts the company’s share value as it turns from green to red.

 

Language does not simply reflect what is going on in organisational life: it also influences what people think and what they do

Linda Holbeche, director of the Holbeche Partnership and visiting professor of HRM/OD at Cass Business School