Dry Powder

For Aurora Theatre's final show of the season, it comes full circle with "Dry Powder," a contemporary play that's the direct descendant of a classic with which the company kicked off its season in 2017.

That was Shaw's "Widower's Houses." Like that show, "Dry Powder" is the work of a beginning playwright; in fact, this was Sarah Burgess' very first theatrical work, inspired by some of her experiences peering into the otherworldly lives of finance students.

And like the older play, "Dry Powder" tells a familiar story about how money conquers all, such that once the game is over it's clear that nobody else was ever really playing.

Here, Aldo Billingslea (recently of both "Fences" and "Othello" at Cal Shakes) is Rick, head of a Wall Street capital fund who is halfway to developing a fatal ulcer thanks to a PR crisis stemming from the elephant in the room.

That's not a metaphor, he actually imported an elephant for his engagement party. That display of excess horrifies the public and pisses off his investors at a time when his company is laying off real workers.

At any given moment, Billingslea looks as if he's either awaiting execution or posing for a bronze statue of himself, with essentially no middle ground to be had.

Although his role affords him only occasional departures from one signature emotion-that is, barely suppressed, volcanic anger-Billingslea is a natural enough actor that Rick seems less like a one-note character and more like a convincing avatar for the real, chronically cantankerous moneyed class.

Almost the entire show takes place in Rick's glacial office, a solid-white box designed by Tanya Orellana to look either like a minimalist aquarium or like the secret moon prison where you'd incarcerate a supervillain in certain movies.

Although the set doesn't work very well the few times it has to sub in for other locations (communicated only by slight rearrangements of chairs and lighting, the only elements really there to work with), for the bulk of the show it's an invaluable reflection of the abyss the characters find themselves mired in.

Two other characters play financial angel and devil on Rick's shoulder in this moneyed morality play. Jeremy Kahn (formerly Hamlet in Aurora's "Wittenberg") is Seth, a smooth-talking dealmaker with some skeleton of idealism still intact from his younger days, while Emily Jeanne Brown is Jenny, a hard-nosed analyst with the people skills of a tire fire.

In the midst of the crisis, both advisers want Rick to buy out the same California company. But whereas Seth wants to preserve the workforce and business, Jenny suggests stripping the whole thing down and selling the assets off like poaching trophies.

We're pretty confident that actual boardroom wars don't sound much like Burgess' dialogue (though she does pop in some real and head-spinning finance jargon), or look much like director Jennifer King's tightly assembled two and three-person scenes.

But the atmosphere of "Dry Powder" (the title tellingly refers to Wall Street slang for money in reserve but also, of course, to stockpiled explosives), in which the wealthy and powerful essentially dare each other into playing chicken with people's lives, feels plausible. Even inevitable.

Between King's lean and aggressive direction, the pointedness of Burgess' words (finance is not an organically interesting topic, but it becomes sufficiently beguiling here), and the long shadow of Billingslea's presence, "Dry Powder" feels real enough to leave you rattled when it's done.

Granted, there's something a bit pageant-like about the conflict. Brown is wonderfully scornful (and the fact that she's the only woman in the room and constantly working to make herself heard is hard to ignore), but Jenny's amorality still seems a bit too on the nose.

Similarly, Seth's feints at idealism and the "perfect" nature of the deal he puts together feel awfully convenient. Even his telltale callowness comes off less as real nuance and more like a concession to the necessities of drama.

But even if "Dry Powder" is a touch artificial, it's still a play for its time: muscular, tense, and almost bullet-like in the unyieldingness of its concepts and conclusions.

"Dry Powder" runs through July 22 at the Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison St. in Berkeley. For tickets and information, call 510-843-4822 or visit AuroraTheatre.org.