SCENE 5 - TRIMMING THE FAT

SCENE 5

TRIMMING THE FAT

In this scene the arrogance Fastow had in the previous scene is gone.

It's like he's been called to the head teachers office

Nerves, desperation, fear

Fastow is like a baby lion, feeble, weak and scared as all babies are but Fastow has something vicious within, an aggressive potential.

Fastow is humbled - takes his shoes and blazer off (ritualistic) playing with the idea of Enron being a cult

He picks himself up off the floor and prepares himself to grovel for his job to Skilling

Both scenes reflect the ruthlessness of the world of Enron. Below Fastow is begging for his job and reduced to tears in doing so and the other Kens birthday is forgotten about. There is a lack of humanity to it all where status dictates, similar to a food chain.

Fastow is at the complete mercy of Jeff in this scene and more or less throughout ironically forgetting the meaning behind a line he throws away in the first scene "he's just a guy, i'm just a guy" ("guy" changed to "person" in our version to accommodate the directors choice to cast Ken as a female)

This scene of skilling over working andy and him simply not being able to keep up no matter how much he exerts himself not only shows the extent to which workers will go to to climb that social ladder or food chain (sticking to the theme of darwinism) this is very much survival of the fittest. Fastow goes as far as to say "i'm gonna have a heart attack" weather thats an exaggeration (an americanism if you will) or not, i'm not sure, but he keeps on running anyway.

Here they begin to talk about deregulating electricity, essentially getting rid of the rules and replacing it with this unstable animalistic competition ("natural selection")

Once Fastow is told he can keep his job there is weight lifted off of his shoulders yet he's still very much confused/shaken by this encounter. He went in expecting to lose his job and left with a promotion of sorts.

The scene ends with a promise from Fastow to Skilling when he says "I wont let you down" and i play this line with that sporadic aggression we sometimes in Fastow. It isn't throw away line but something that sticks with Skilling and although the willingness of his employee may feed his ego i think it scares the little humanity he has within him.

Roe then echos this same line but here it's in reference to asking Ken a favour. The relationship between Ken and Roe here is like mother and daughter but the relationship between Jeff and Fastow is closer to Dog and owner.