About a Guy Who "Tried to Change the World"

Before characterizing Skilling or the rest of the executives in Enron, Prebble opens the play through a lawyer’s monologue who introduces the story of a guy who ‘tried to change the world’. The lawyer then says he will tell Skilling’s story, but points out that “you should know it could never be exactly what happened. But we’re going to put it together and sell it to you as the truth’ (prologue). Right from the start, Prebble reveals the corporate structure and culture of Enron that is evidenced in the play.

In a way, the lawyer’s line clarifies the phantasmagorical oddities within the portrayals of certain characters and key moments throughout the play. But, the opening also hints to the audience that the ‘truth’ is not a simple concept.

By toying with the notion of ‘trust’ in its targeted relation to ‘truth,’ Prebble challenges the idea of trust within the corporate culture of the company. Although there appears to be a lot of trust within and around the company, Prebble indicates that employees and other stakeholders, like Arthur Anderson and the Lehman Brothers, are quick to sell their trust to advance their careers.

In this way, ‘trust,’ in itself persuading some form of ‘truth,’ is a commodity that, in alliance with Skilling’s new company strategy, lacks any worth out of the market. This social setting takes trust and truth and commodifies them, dangerously meshing ‘laissez-faire’ economic liberalism with dishonesty and corruption.

Prebble villainizes Skilling and Fastow. Skilling is portrayed as a ruthless bully and adulterer who’s infatuation with self-promotion causes him to disregard the consequences of his own actions.

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In the same way, Fastow is portrayed as socially awkward and reckless. At the end of the play, when the Enron scandal culminated and many lost their jobs, Skilling showed no remorse, which furthers Prebble’s emphasis on the culture of greed and self-centeredness. Skilling’s fatal flaw was the separation of finance from society, which propelled a corporate culture of selfishness and greed rather than success. In Skilling’s speech, he addresses the audience, explaining that “everything I’ve done in my life worth anything

has been done in a bubble; in a state of extreme hope and trust and stupidity.’ Here, Skilling acknowledges that his own commodified trust was full of empty truth. Prebble also captures this character flaw in Skilling ‘holding a mirror up to nature,’ which strips him from his phony prestige and grounds him as no different from the common consumer, looking for new products and more savings. Although the consequences of the greed and selfishness cost Skilling everything, his deregulated corporate strategy holds the power for one to change the world, and reveals that society plays a huge role in a company, as the markets in Enron’s case truly reflected society’s overall desire and gullibility.