Mayer, even he acknowledges, serves mostly to separate the other two: “So the arm doesn’t crush the head and the head doesn’t humiliate the arm. In short order, Henry is joined by younger siblings Emmanuel (Adrian Lester) – the “arm” to Henry’s “head” – and Mayer (Adam Godley), the baby brother derisively nicknamed Spud because his face is as smooth as a peeled potato. Within three years he’s opened a tiny dry goods shop in, of all place, Montgomery, Alabama, catering to the poor, the overseers, anyone in need of clothes sturdy, durable and cheap.

Henry arrives at Ellis Island alone, 10 pounds lighter than when he began his 45-day sea voyage and already wiser in the ways of the world and steerage than could ever have been gained in the Bavarian village of Rimpar, Germany. Cardboard file boxes will be shuffled, stacked, knocked over and restacked to create any number of structures and settings, and video projections (designed by Luke Halls) place the action among cotton fields and skyscrapers, land and water, through the ages of slavery, wars, crashes and computers. In a description that will oversimplify to an absurd degree, the set is a transparent cube, a glasslike square that will serve as everything from a humble Alabama country store to the cloud-touching offices of a Wall Street giant. Actually, Henry is the second person on stage – in a very brief prologue, a janitor in 2008 sweeps away the office rubbish that will be left in the wake of everything we’re about to witness, everything that begins with the arrival on Ellis Island of Henry Lehman.

To start at the beginning: The National Theatre production opening tonight at the Nederlander Theatre opens with the arrival onstage of a solitary figure – Henry Lehman, played by Simon Russell Beale, but more about the cast shortly – dressed in the familiar black garb of the 19th Century Jewish immigrant. Broadway's Acclaimed 'Is This A Room' & 'Dana H.' Will Close Early Producers Cite 'Challenging' Box Office Environmentĭirected with astonishing grace and ingenuity by Sam Mendes, the Stefano Masinni play, adapted by Ben Power and based on Masinni’s novel, is maybe the single most effective display of imaginative theatrical storytelling since Angels in America landed on Broadway in 1993, a comparison brought to mind by their shared ambition, breadth of style and substance, and deep delight in the inventiveness that transforms everything on stage into a spellbinding demonstration of theater’s possibilities.

Dilwale dulhania le jayenge all song