Sanjit De Silva, Claire Danes, and John Krasinski           photos by Carol Rosegg

 

 

                                               By Ron Cohen

 

“People don’t relate to me,” says Jenny, the delightfully monstrous financial executive portrayed with laser-like acuity by Claire Danes in Dry Powder, an exceptional new comedy by Sarah Burgess. The reverse, of course, is equally true: Jenny doesn’t relate to people. She is a woman with no empathy at all for anything but numbers and return on investment.

 

Fortunately, however, audiences relate to Danes. The thespian commitment, magnetic edge and underlying sense of humor she brings to this monolithic character add up to a performance that is consistently entertaining, even enthralling. You can’t wait to hear what sort of insensitive thing is going to come out of her mouth next. And Burgess has supplied with her a nearly endless amount of hair-raising bon mots, including her deadpan putdowns of such formidable institutions as Yale University and The New York Times and her callousness to the plight of American workers who can no longer find employment. If people aren’t training themselves properly for exigencies, she argues, they deserve what they get.

 

John Krasinski and Claire Danes 

 

Jenny, one of the four characters on stage in Dry Powder, is a founding partner in a private equity firm undergoing an avalanche of bad publicity. On the same day the firm announced massive layouts at a supermarket chain, the firm’s president, Rick, threw himself a lavish engagement party, complete with an elephant – or elephants, depending on who’s describing the event. Major investors are threatening to pull their capital from the firm.

 

 

To the rescue comes Seth, the firm’s other founding partner, who brings in a potential deal to buy a longtime luggage company. Seth’s plan is to convert the firm to online marketing of custom-made travel gear, while keeping its American labor force intact. This, he argues, will recoup Rick’s good name. Jenny, however, counters with a plan for better return on investment: get rid of the company’s physical assets, decimates its American employment, move production to Asia and focus on selling to China’s growing middle class.

 

Seth, whose business acumen is tempered with a sprinkling of idealism, rejects Jenny’s proposal. He has, in fact, sort of promised the luggage firm’s well-meaning chief executive, Jeff, that the domestic labor force would be maintained. The debate as to the luggage company’s future makes up the gist of the play, and if it doesn’t sound like a promising idea for an absorbing piece of playwriting, guess again.

 

Burgess has filled her script with crisp, sparkling repartee bouncing between Jenny and Seth, as refereed by a concerned Rick. The dialogue is loaded with financial jargon (the title is part of that jargon, meaning private capital available for investing). But this hardly detracts from the grand entertainment engendered by the bickering between these two smart opposing forces. The play also gains depth in its intimations of the growing resentment among the general populace engendered by these manipulators of our economy. It’s a resentment, Seth argues, that could well grow into hatred, and he more than once reminds his colleagues of the chaos of the French Revolution.

John Krasinski and Hank Azaria

 

Furthermore, the plot becomes more complex when the luggage firm’s CEO enters the scene, with still another proposal that throws Seth into a dilemma. It doesn’t take long to get caught up in the fate of this luggage company -- and the conflicting characters trying to map out its future -- and to see it as a microcosm of the plundering of the American economy by the machinations of the country’s financial powers.

 

If you haven’t heard of playwright Burgess until now, it’s not surprising. This is her first major professional production, as Oscar Eustis, the indefatigable artistic director of The Public Theater, tells us in a program note. He also expresses his undue enthusiasm for the piece, both for the importance of the subject matter and the “pop” of its writing.

 

This zeal is reflected in the starry cast The Public has assembled. In addition to Danes, the award-winning star of television’s Homeland series, there are two other marquee names of note. John Krasinski, well known for his starring role on The Office, plays Seth, and Hank Azaria, celebrated for his voice work on The Simpsons as well as his numerous appearances in TV, film and stage, portrays Rick. Completing the company is Sanjit De Silva as Jeff. All four of them make the piece crackle with fully realized characters and great ensemble work.

 

Eustis also handed the directing reins to one of the Public’s current stars, Thomas Kail, who directed its bonanza Hamilton. Kail completes this infinitely more intimate assignment with aplomb.

 

Furthermore, with this production, The Public has transformed its rather ungainly Martinson Theater into a comfortable and sleekly handsome in-the-round playing space. It shows off Rachel Hauck’s attractively minimalist set to good advantage.

 

Finally, Eustis closes his note by advising the audience: “Enjoy yourself. Save your program. This is a special world premiere.” Whether or not your assessment matches Eustis’s enthusiasm, Dry Powder can be counted on to keep you entertained and maybe even give you something to think about later.

 

Playing at The Public Theater’s Martinson Theater

425 Lafayette Street

212 967-7555

www.publictheater.org

Playing until May 1