Financial crashes are onstage. The economic crisis of 2008 in the English and Italian dramaturgy

I analyse David Hare's The Power of Yes (2009), Lucy Prebble's Enron (2009), and Stefano Massini's Lehman Trilogy (2012). All the three works have a relevant connection to the main topic. The paper focuses on the strategies each author employs in the dramatization of the economy and looks at their conclusions on the nature of the economic crisis. I first illustrate the reason of this specific kind of approach to the subject in the introduction; then, I analyse each play individually in the three following sections. I conclude by underlining how the interest in socio-economic structures in relation to present times remains very central in the two English plays but seems to be almost absent in the Italian play. I take this element as evidence of the more socially engaged nature of English theatre in comparison to Italian theatre.