Brian Herndon, Peter Hadres, and Johnny Moreno Photo by San Jose Stage Company

Truly epic in scope and length, The Lehman Trilogy immediately rewinds the clock 158 years to the moment the first Lehman brother lands off the boat in New York. What follows on the intimate, floor-level setting of San Jose Stage Company's stage is a live, cinematic-like history lesson that is immediately captivating, incredibly fascinating, and emotionally a roller-coaster as the successful pursuit of the American Dream by three immigrant brothers eventually becomes a frightening nightmare affecting the entire world.

The modern-day headquarters with cardboard boxes all labeled "LB," one rectangular table, and three leather chairs on rollers remains the setting for the entire history about to unfold in its incredible detail. As the first, Bavarian-born brother–Heyum, soon to be renamed Henry at immigration–arrives on September 14, 1844, he says repeatedly the Jewish blessing "Baruch hashem" ("Blessed be G-d") and remarks, "I am in that magical, music box called America."

While the years and decades of events occur in the modern setting of the story's tragic ending, the characters themselves–three arriving brothers–remain dressed in their long, black coats and suits (Abra Berman, designer) even as the clock ticks through three centuries and even as they each take on scores of parts. In this must-see production of The Stage that often seems like we are watching a live re-imagination of an audiobook about the Lehman threesome and their future generations, their humble beginnings and their office tower ending are always in our focus.

Act One, "Three Brothers," introduces us to Henry (Peter Hadres), Emanuel (Johnny Moreno), and Mayer (Brian Herndon)–all sons of a cattle merchant in Bavaria–as they arrive in that order to the U.S. over a six-year period and settle in Montgomery, Alabama. As did many Jewish immigrants in the South, the brothers open a dry-goods store selling fabrics, with Henry telling us that in Alabama, "you don't work to live ... you live to work"–a belief that will be the commanding motto of these three and all future Lehmans.

When a fire destroys the surrounding cotton plantations, the Lehmans decide to provide credit to the farmers to restart their destroyed crops, providing them upfront cash with the promise of one-third their eventual crop as payment. With that, the Lehman Brothers invent the profession of the "middleman," a position the family will continue to have to link producers and buyers of first cotton, then coffee, iron, tobacco, trains, armaments, films, radio, TV, and more.

The wordy script reveals the Lehmans' business and personal lives, decisions, and ongoing, major turns of events; but that wordiness is never too overbearing or tedious and in fact is often like a poem whose lines are being tossed from one brother to the next. Using the third-person voice, they narrate in detail their surroundings, their reactions to each other, their descriptions of others inside and outside the family, and their innermost feelings, hopes, and fears. In many ways, we are listening to them read their own autobiographies while seeing short vignettes play out to fill in details of what we are hearing. And as their stories unfold, we cannot help but lean in so not to miss one bit of another most interesting detail.

Brotherly kidding, rivalry, and deep-felt devotion is evident among the three siblings: oldest and dominant Henry is known as "Head"; the middle and quick-to-resist Emanuel is called "Arm"; and the youngest is Mayer, lovingly first nicknamed "Spud" ("Potato") but later anointed "Kish, Kish," Yiddish for "kiss," denoting his role as a mediating go-between when his two elder brothers disagree–which is often. Each actor excels in developing a distinctive impression and personality not only for each of the brothers but also for ensuing members of the generations to come.

In Act Two's "Fathers and Sons," Peter Hadres becomes Emanuel's son, the fast-talking, highly entrepreneurial Philip; Johnny Moreno, Mayer's son and future New York governor, Herbert; and Brian Herndon, Philip's son Robert, the last of the Lehmans to serve as chair of the firm. Each actor also morphs in the split of a second into family patriarchs, bawling babies, playful kids, chanting or dancing rabbis, skeptical farmers, demanding business partners, and flirting, coquettish, future wives. Props to aid their transformations are few–a cane, an umbrella, change of hat, knitted shawl–but props are hardly necessary for these three. With a myriad of voice, posture, accent, and facial expression switches made instantaneously but while still in their mid-nineteenth centuries vests and/or suits, each of the actors convincingly–and often laugh-out-loud humorously–becomes the story's seemingly countless people three-to-ninety-plus years in age.

Each actor also has a chance to wow us as he reenacts sleep-depriving dreams that rival ones that the biblical Jacob and Joseph have–dreams that are accompanied by fast-approaching trains, mountains of threatening clouds, or fast falling from a freakish skyscraper. Those projected scenes along with scores of authentic photographs from the story's many decades establish the moment's setting, time period, mood, and historical context via the mastery of video designer, Erik Scanlon.

And throughout the years, the family's Jewish heritage and religious practices are a constant thread linking the generations, even as those beliefs are updated to further assimilate the family into the American culture they so love and in which they thrive.

The excitement of railroads linking the country's coasts, the horror and devastation of the Civil War, the optimism of a century's turning, the upheavals of World Wars, and the life-and-economy-changing inventions from automobiles and planes to television and computers are all vivid and important parts of the Lehman history that plays out in both the changing names of their firm and in the fortunes the family builds. Even the darkest events like fires, wars, and a stock market crash become opportunities for a family that has learned how to "use money to make more money."

Act Three, ironically entitled "The Immortal," begins with the aftermath of Black Thursday and then picks up the pace, finally to become totally frenetic as an aging Robert (Bobby) Lehman and his unseen directors around the firm's conference table increasingly "buy" in order "to survive," "to exist," "to live." Like a near maniac, Bobby outlines a vision for their investment banking empire where "everyone borrows, everyone buys" and "we will become all powerful." What the now ninety-year-old, final family survivor fails to see is the inevitable crash of millions of toxic derivatives that will end not only the Lehman dream, but the dreams of millions around the world.

Along with this cast of three, director Kenneth Kelleher deserves kudos stacked as high as the storage boxes that he employs constantly in the story's telling. The various generations and characters parading across the timeline re-arrange, stack up, climb on, lounge on, ride upon like a carriage, toss across the room and somehow barely catch, dance with as a waltzing partner, and so much more the boxes around them. Not only is the play's three-hour script word heavy, the director has ensured that the three actors are in constant re-blocking and re-positioning modes. All the time, Steve Schoenbeck provides an underlying score of music appropriate to the portrayed time period and/or to the actions (often frenzied) currently occurring–all played on piano. Maurice Vercouture's telling and expressive lighting design provides the capstone for a creative team that together spawn complete scenes from near emptiness.

In the end, whether we as audience find ourselves admiring or decrying the incredible business acumen, the sheer audacity, and the personal power to move financial mountains that the Lehman brothers instilled in themselves and their sons and nephews, we cannot help but admit that this mostly true story of near-unbelievable accomplishments that have a controversial and devastating outcome is also a history that is important to know. And further, we leave San Jose Stage Company knowing we have been educated and thrilled by a riveting, must-see production–one that deserves a sold-out audience the rest of its too-short run.

The Lehman Trilogy runs through March 1, 2026, at San Jose Stage Company, 490 South 1st Street, San Jose CA. For tickets and information, please visit www.thestage.org or call 408-283-7142.