onStage Pittsburgh – Quantum Theatre Retelling of Real-Life Greed and Corruption Bursts with Kinetic Energy.
So much of the play Enron is true to life, that to call it a dark comedy, you must emphasize dark, or as a cautionary tale, a better emphasis would be: beware.
Quantum Theatre is retelling the tale right on time for the demon season, with a compelling, kinetic staging of the Lucy Prebble play that looks back on the downfall of a corporate giant. The Texas-based energy company was known to all who lived through the turn of the 20th century for its national “Ask Why” campaign, which portrayed Enron as a pioneering, innovative energy and business company.
It was all smoke and mirrors, laid bare in the production that occupies an L-shaped space on the stripped-down sixth floor of One Oxford Centre.
The atmosphere is a party to start, followed by a fascinating, fast-paced, fitful representation of human indifference that accompanies you to the exit.
In collaboration with Attack Theatre, Kyle Haden directs an imaginative, entertaining vision of what went on behind the scenes of a company whose bankruptcy cost more than 20,000 employees their life savings in 2001. Enron’s $63.4 billion in assets represented the largest U.S. bankruptcy case in history, until the Lehman Brothers debacle of 2008 surpassed it – an event alluded to in the play.
Joe McGranaghan is the dynamo at the center of it all as Jeffrey Skilling, who in six months as CEO of Enron saw it soar to new heights as an “energy” and innovation company – any mention of tangibles such as oil and gas be damned.
McGranaghan’s Skilling is a master of commitment to the ideals of moneymaking in a tailored suit, creating a “greed is good” roadmap for his devoted followers, from investors to the fresh-faced men and women who came to work for him.
The head of the company, Ken Lay, is played by Ken Bolden as a jovial sort, delighting in sucking up to politicians and in having others do the dirty work of making money for him.
Skilling’s foil is Claudia Roe (Christine Weber), who can see what’s happening as she is shunted aside. She represents the old guard point of view on the one hand, but as the lone woman in an executive’s position, has her own streak of business ruthlessness.
As a worshipful lieutenant helping Skilling to marshal Enron in all the wrong directions, John Michnya is particularly (and perfectly) loathsome as CFO Andy Fastow. It is Fastow who comes up with the scheme to hide the company’s ever-growing debt from prying eyes.
Without giving too much away, representations of overflowing debt (kudos to costume designer Damian E. Dominguez) are particularly effective in illustrating the enabling of Enron’s obvious big three, who would eventually be convicted of a myriad of white-collar crimes.
The production surrounds them in a dance of hyperactivity, as the young men and women lured to Enron help create nothing except numbers on a board. The kinetic frenzy slows when they begin to question being paid in stock options, as opposed to the money that those numbers supposedly represent – a cringe moment, for sure.
The Enron cast includes Attack company dancers Isabella Bergamin, Anya Epstein, Jax RF McAtee and Will VanSlander, whose contributions include indelible masked characters. McAtee teams with José Pérez IV as the Lehman Brothers, a comedy duo that drew some of the biggest laughs on opening night.
Amy Landis moves seamlessly and helpfully through multiple roles, along with Perez, Isaac Miller, Jamie Agnello, Parag S. Gohel, and Tru Verret-Flemming.
The large cast also is charged with scene changes, moving desks and chairs into place in the every-changing corporate atmosphere. My left-center view afforded a look at two large screens that were at times showing what was happening live (news conferences, for example), or signs of the times – Y2K, Bush beats Al Gore, California blackouts, and 9/11, all integral to the Enron story.
An eerily detached McGranaghan also interacts with an eerily cold video of Skilling’s daughter, in a chilling nod to the Enron “Ask Why” campaign.
Just as chilling is McGranaghan’s straight-faced, unremorseful justifications for Skilling’s actions.
It takes a village to realize the transformative, flow-through space that was once a barren floor of the gleaming Downtown skyscraper. Realizing Haden’s vision is a team led by scenic designer Sasha Jin Schwartz, director of production Alex Ungerman, projection designer Kolton Cotton, technical specialist Anthony Del Grosso, technical director James “Cubbie” McCrory, lighting designer C. Todd Brown and sound designer Stewart Blackwood.
Enron’s downfall is part of our recent history, and as such, we should have learned from it. And yet, on that account, we know better.
When I got up the morning after the opening of Enron, I went to my New York Times app (Wordle was calling), and this was among the several apropos headlines that greeted me:
Big Tech’s A.I. Spending Is Accelerating (Again): Despite the risk of a bubble, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon plan to spend billions more on artificial intelligence than they already do.
Amid the artful theatricality of Enron is a crash-course in economic bubbles, along with a winning strategy for audiences to become thoroughly invested in a tale of greed and corruption on a monumental scale.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Enron, the Quantum Theatre collaboration with Attack Theatre, each in its third decade as Pittsburgh-based performing arts mainstays, is presented on the sixth floor of One Oxford Centre, 301 Grant Street, Downtown, through November 23, 2025. Free parking is available in One Oxford Centre’s adjoining garage (GPS address: 339 Cherry Way, Pittsburgh, PA 15219), and Quantum patrons may enjoy a pre-show dinner via a special prix fixe menu at the Rivers Club on select nights (advance reservations required). Tickets and more details: https://www.quantumtheatre.com/enron/. Note: On opening night Thursday, October 30, it was very warm inside the production area. If it’s cold outside, layers might be the way to dress.
