Joshua David Robinson Spreads his Wings with Epic 'The Lehman Trilogy'

Queer and non-binary actor Joshua David Robinson joins Steven Skybell and Firdous Bamji as the three German immigrants that lend the play "The Lehman Brothers Trilogy" its title. Coming to America in the mid-1800s, the brothers (and, later, their descendants) were destined to make an indelible mark on the country, and on business itself. The play, written by Italian playwright Stefano Massini, traces how Henry, Emanuel, and Mayer Lehman set up shop in Alabama, revolutionized business by inventing the concept of the middleman, and how, later still, the company pioneered business practices that proved extremely lucrative – but also contributed to catastrophic chapters in history: The Great Depression and the great financial meltdown of 2008.

Spanning more than 160 years, the play (and its dozens of characters) relies on only three actors. Originally a five-hour production, "The Lehman Trilogy" has been adapted into three-hour version by British playwright Ben Power. The play was first produced in English in a 2018 West End production directed by Sam Mendes that made its way to Broadway, and then to Los Angeles in 2020, but until now – in the Huntington Theater Company's production, with Carey Perloff at the helm – the play hasn't had an American director.

Robinson, who holds an MFA in Acting from NYU Tisch, has appeared in Broadway in "The Minutes," as well as appearing in half a dozen off-Broadway productions, including "Sense of an Ending" and "The Convent of Pleasure." They have also appeared in film ("The Falling World," 2022) and television ("Ian," "The Future is Then").

EDGE talked with Robinson about the play, the challenges of a three-hour production and multiple roles, and what the prospect of taking the play elsewhere after its Boston run means in terms of being away from home for an extended time. "I was a bit of a late bloomer," Robinson confided, "so working on this production will be the longest I've been away from my community since I started living openly as a queer and non-binary person.

"I was honestly pretty nervous (terrified really) about that," they added, "even more than about the task of performing a three-hour, three-actor play, playing a dozen different characters. But it has been a really affirming experience. I'm glad I took the risk and spread my wings a little."

Read on for more of Robinson's thoughts about this deeply American story and its first production with an American director.

EDGE: Written by an Italian playwright, first produced in English by a British director... do you suppose that this is a story that had to originate, in a sense, outside of America?

Joshua David Robinson: There's a lot of issues that come up in the play about how the Lehmans made their money, about their effect on America, that from an American perspective probably would have focused on different things. What we have is a towering epic about the American dream, but it would absolutely have been a different story if it was written by someone steeped in American culture.

My knowledge comes from researching this play, so forgive me if I say things that are inaccurate. The Lehman Brothers made their first fortune selling cotton. They weren't plantation owners, but they did own slaves, and they did make their money selling cotton from the South to the North. I think if an American playwright had written that story, that would have been something that would have been a bit more forefronted.

EDGE: The Lehman brothers invented so much about modern financial business practices, but also, the play suggests the company's innovations set the stage for the meltdown of 2008. Would you call this a cautionary tale?

Joshua David Robinson: Maybe, but even within the story, the story repeats itself, right? Because you have the Depression as a part of this story, and then you have the 2008 financial crisis, and the same business being involved. I don't know if it's cautionary as much as reflective and historical, because I don't know if the message to this is, "Hey, look what happens when capitalism runs rampant." It just is what has happened in America. America has provided space for this kind of business to thrive.

EDGE: Aside from Emanuel, what character do you feel you most identify with or enjoy playing?

Joshua David Robinson: [Governor of New York] Herbert Lehman [an ally of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal] was a fascinating character who I didn't know much about, but he sounds like a pretty cool dude. [He's] truly a beloved figure in New York and in politics, and seems like the kind of person who really was trying to do what he thought was best for people [and] wanted to do what's right as far as his morals could determine what was right. Being able to embody someone who I jive with in that regard is very cool.

Also, later in the play, there's a character whose name is Lewis Glucksman who comes in towards the end, right before the financial crisis in 2008 when Lehman as an entity ceased to exist. His energy is as if he always has an axe in his hand and is carving his way through the world. His energy is so different than anything else that we've seen in the play or anything that I've embodied up to that point in the play. It feels visceral and contemporary. It's also very fun to, late in the third act, throw in this very different energy, as we've all been sitting here for almost three hours at that point. It kind of wakes me up as an actor, and I'm sure we'll be like the audience when it comes to seeing that, "Oh, we're in a different time now as well."

EDGE: How are you handling the way the three actors in the play depict so many other characters? Are there any costumes changes or is it all a matter of voice and body language?

Joshua David Robinson: A lot of the characterizations we're just doing physically. There are certain characters that will have a prop or something that becomes emblematic of them. The three of us are doing it in slightly different ways. Like, for Steven, who's playing Henry Lehman, he loves to play Henry with his hat on. There are some props, there's canes, pipes, things like that. When we're talking about gender, I'm looking forward to seeing a production of this play that doesn't have three male-bodied people playing all the brothers, because there are female characters.

EDGE: How do the lighting and sound and costumes all play into the task of having so few actors play so many characters?

Joshua David Robinson: I don't want to give too much away because it's going to be super cool, but the set design is truly incredible. It's like our set designer, Sara Brown, has given us this incredible playground to run around in. The kind of storytelling that we're able to do is very dynamic. We take pieces of the set and use them in multiple different ways, and there's multiple levels of the set. It is going to be very exhausting to do, but I think it is going to be truly dynamic as far as the staging and the set design goes.

EDGE: What's the chemistry and the energy like in this tiny cast?

Joshua David Robinson: It's got to be solid, right? You have to have clear communication about your boundaries, about the things that you're interested in. Like any relationship, trust is something that needs to be built and continuously worked on. It's a big play with a lot of moving parts, and we only have each other to make it work. Continuously building and working on our relationship as actors together is always part of the jam. But this one in particular... yeah, it's us three up there for three hours.

EDGE: There is a strong cinematic sense about the play that comes across just in reading the script.

Joshua David Robinson: There's a lot of popping in and out of direct address and then into a scene with characters. All of those transitions are very theatrical and very dynamic. There's a lot of jump cuts, jumps in time, jumping back and forth, which is a tough thing to do on stage. But right now, from what we've done so far, it's leaning into all the wonderful things that theater can do, because we're not going to be able to jump to another location or jump in time the way that a film would be able to do, but we can make all of those really wonderful theatrical gestures. I think it's gonna be a very, very dynamic, very exciting evening in the theater.