Gold Diggers Of 2008

We now issue a travel advisory for certain people if they are contemplating a trip to London--namely Stanford University economist Myron Scholes, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, partners of Goldman Sachs, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and any Harvard graduates who happen to be sensitive about their alma mater's reputation. The message: Do not visit the Royal National Theatre to see Sir David Hare's new play about the Western banking crisis. Failure to follow this advice may leave you in a state of bruised apoplexy.
Left-winger Hare is one of Britain's most cherished living playwrights.
It would be wrong to call him a fan of the U.S., yet his polemic can not lightly be dismissed simply as anti-Americanism. He has just brought an interesting injection of ad hominem vituperation to the London stage, something that may reflect a sense of public powerlessness during recent economic upheavals.
Recently Hare's work has veered away from fictitious drama. In his 2004 work "Stuff Happens" he recreated the diplomatic build-up to the Iraq War, a play of near-journalistic exposition in which actors adopted the mannerisms and voices of the politicians, soldiers and envoys they were playing. Now Sir David (as he dislikes being called) has brought the same technique to the banking crash.
The show is called "The Power of Yes," and it is playing to packed houses at London's biggest subsidized theater. Wall Street and the City of London, as you might expect, get it in the neck. The production seeks to explain to laymen the events of September 2008, when, to quote Hare, "capitalism came to a grinding halt and ceased to function for about four days." Lehman Brothers ( LEHMQ - news - people ) filed for bankruptcy on the 15th of that month. It was also a time when the collapse of Britain's Northern Rock was followed by a bad wobble in several British retail banks, leading the Labour Government to effectively nationalize large parts of the financial sector. Some wondered if it represented the death of Thatcherism and British officialdom's affair with market economics.
Let's deal with the Harvard/Goldman Sachs ( GS - news - people ) abuse first. Hare has one of his narrators say: "You'll notice it's a running theme how many of the people who f***ed up capitalism came from Harvard--some came from Harvard, some from Goldman Sachs, most came from both." Enter Myron Scholes, who gave his name to the Black-Scholes formula for pricing options and worked alongside some of Harvard's finest (if we can call them that).
Source forbes.com/