Actor Anish Jethmalani, a son of Indian immigrants, finds meaning in ‘The Lehman Trilogy,’ a play about a Jewish family’s trials

Actor Anish Jethmalani stars in “The Lehman Trilogy” at the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place. “I was fascinated with this idea of what does [the American dream] mean to any immigrant family that’s coming here to achieve that, and what is the cost in wanting to achieve it?,” the actor says. (Anthony Vazquez / Sun-Times)

It’s not hard to see the draw of “The Lehman Trilogy” — a Tony Award-winning epic that requires each of three actors to play multiple roles and navigate with near-trapeze-like coordination across a stage heaped with clutter.

What convinced Anish Jethmalani to take on the challenge was the idea that, in the real-life immigrant tale of brothers Henry Lehman (played by Mitchell J. Fain), Mayer Lehman (played by Joey Slotnick) and Emanuel Lehman (Jethmalani’s character), he could mine the struggles, delights and surprises of his own origin story.