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If ever there was a real life modern-day tragedy in the classical sense, the colossal rise and fall of Enron would be it. Yet while the dynamics are certainly there – hubris, larger-than-life characters, tragic flaws – Enron was an energy company! Tragic maybe, but dramatic? Stage worthy? The answer is a resounding yes! It's all in the way you tell it . . . and the telling at the Broadhurst Theatre is riveting.

He certainly doesn't look like Oedipus or King Lear, but Jeffrey Skilling, Enron's president and CEO, was every bit the tragic figure at the center of the Enron collapse. His business savvy and profound greed brought the company tremendous profits and ultimately bankruptcy with losses in the tens of billions. The collateral damage to employees and unfortunate innocents who got caught in the crossfire was devastating.

Yet as dramatically tempting as it might be to focus on the victims, playwright Lucy Prebble keeps the spotlight on Skilling and his co-conspirators, who were either ignorant, blinded by the riches or simply looked the other way.

To Prebble's credit, the script doesn't shy away from the financial jargon. Loaded with dense detail, audiences learn a lot but the material could easily turn deadly dull.

The fact that it's incredibly fascinating owes as much to Prebble's writing as Rupert Goold's extraordinary direction. Given the story's complexities and epic proportions, the production turns outrageously entertaining with music and dance, special effects and wild symbolism.

The board of directors becomes three blind mice and the shadow companies created to hide Enron's debt are depicted as velociraptors.

Bravo to the entire company. Gregory Itzin as Chairman Ken Lay, Stephen Kunken's CFO Andy Fastow and Marin Mazzie as Skilling's fictional rival are excellent. But Norbert Leo Butz is brilliant as Skilling and dominates the stage. This versatile actor who's dazzled audiences as a fine singer and comedian can now add gifted tragedian to his long list of credits.

One of the things you learn in "Enron" is that companies are rated by financial analysts on the basis of their stock values. It's either "Buy," "Sell" or "Hold." Without manipulation or fraud, "Enron" the play earns a very "Strong Buy."