THE LEHMAN TRILOGY
Where: The Belfry Theatre, 1291 Gladstone Ave.
When: April 25-May 19
Tickets: Pay What You Can (385-6815 or online at tickets.belfry.bc.ca)
Brian Markinson’s career path to this point has been rollercoaster-like, to put it simply. And it’s about to become more adventuresome for the Vancouver-based actor, who plays severals roles — including one of the leads — in the Belfry Theatre’s production of the The Lehman Trilogy.
“It’s an interesting piece of writing,” Markinson said of the play, which opens Thursday. “There have been so many incarnations of this thing, before it got to the point where it is now. You can tell this story a million different ways.”
The original Italian production, based on the novel by author and playwright Stefano Massini, had a huge cast numbering approximately 18 actors, Markinson said. But while the scope of the story is massive, its Broadway version was spare by comparison, with three actors playing multiple roles. It was a certified success upon arrival in 2022, winning multiple Tony Awards, including one for its Oscar-winning director, Sam Mendes.
Mendes worked with a cast of three on the production, each of whom earned Tony Award nominations for their efforts. Simon Russell Beale, in the role of Henry Lehman, won the award, which doesn’t surprise Markinson. He will occupy the same role (that of the eldest Lehman sibling) in the upcoming production at The Belfry, and it’s a meaty one.
Spanning three generations and 164 years, The Lehman Trilogy begins in 1844, when the roots of what became the Lehman Brothers empire were sowed. The foundation for the company was poured by Henry Lehman, a Bavarian upstart whose first business upon arriving in America was a textile shop in Montgomery, Alabama. Banking was not in his purview at the time, but generations later the company morphed into the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States, behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch.
Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in 2008, a victim of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, having been in operation for 158 years.
The Lehman Trilogy is about capitalism, but it has more to do with family, Markinson said. “Its about the dream and the promise of what America offered, and what happens when Icarus flies too close to the sun,” Markinson, 62, said.
“Lehman Brothers, like Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, these were family businesses that, at a certain point, turned the corner and took the wrong fork in the road. It’s about what happens when you sacrifice your values for wealth.”
Michael Shamata, who is directing The Belfry production, is flipping the script, so to speak: He cast Celine Stubel in the role of Mayer Lehman, the youngest of the brothers. The role-reversal was a novel one, according to the Vancouver-based Markinson, who was born in Brooklyn and raised in a Jewish family.
“[Shamata] cast a Jewish actor, a Black actor (Nigel Shawn Williams, who plays Emanuel Lehman), and a woman to play these three brothers,” Markinson said. “But we also play myriad different characters. I play women, I play little boys. Celine is playing a man. So it’s not just a Jewish story. It’s about all of us. It’s an immigrant story that has a resonance. It transcends a narrow telling.”
Markinson has plenty of experience acting alongside Stubel; the two appeared in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America at Vancouver’s Arts Club Theatre Company. Markinson had a hand in the 2016 revival, having already appeared in the Emmy Award-winning HBO miniseries in 2003, alongside a who’s-who of acting royalty: Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, Jeffrey Wright, and Michael Gambon among them.
That experience is typical of Markinson’s career. He has acted everywhere, from Broadway to Hollywood, and with top talents in each field (recurring roles in Mad Men and The L Word are two of the many high-profile TV series he has appeared on).
Key for Markinson among his more than 170 credits were fruitful collaborations with director Michel Nichols, both on Broadway and in film. He worked with the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony winner on the movies Wolf (with Jack Nicholson), Primary Colors (with John Travolta), and Charlie Wilson’s War (with Tom Hanks), all notable for their A-list stars.
However, when asked for his favourite Nichols experience, Markinson pointed to Angels in America, on account of his scenes with Pacino; he said the acting icon is a “theatre junkie.” Markinson appears to be one himself, despite his success in other areas.
“The real true artform for an actor is the theatre. As I get older, I will be more and more selective in what I want to do in TV and film. My plan is to do as much theatre as I can moving forward.”
