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HurlyBurly
David William Rabe (born March 10, 1940) is an American playwright and screenwriter. He won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1972 (Sticks and Bones) and also received Tony award nominations for Best Play in 1974 (In the Boom Boom Room), 1977 (Streamers) and 1985 (Hurlyburly). Rabe was born in Dubuque, Iowa, the son of Ruth, a department store worker, and William Rabe, a teacher and meat packer. He attended Roman Catholic schools in Dubuque, and graduated from Loras College, a Catholic liberal-arts college. He began graduate studies in theater at Villanova University, but dropped out and was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1965. He served until 1967, spending his last eleven months of service in Vietnam. Rabe was married to actress Jill Clayburgh from 1978 until her death November 5, 2010. He has two children with Clayburgh, actress Lily Rabe and Michael Rabe. He has one son, Jason Rabe, from his first marriage. Rabe is known for his loose trilogy of plays drawing on his experiences as an Army draftee in Vietnam, Sticks and Bones (1969), the Tony Award-winning The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel (1971), and Streamers (1976). He also wrote the screenplay for the film version of HurlyBurly, and the screenplays for the Vietnam War drama Casualties of War (1989) and the film adaptation of John Grisham's The Firm (1993). Hurlyburly is a dark comedy first staged in 1984. The title, HurlyBurly (meaning "noisy confusion" or "tumult"), is derived from dialogue in Act I, Scene I of Shakespeare's Macbeth: First Witch: "When shall we three meet again / In thunder, lightning, or in rain?" Second Witch: "When the hurlyburly's done, / When the battle's lost and won." More than three hours long, Hurlyburly focuses on the intersecting lives of several low- to mid-level Hollywood players in the 1980s. Fueled by massive amounts of drugs, they attempt to find some meaning in their isolated, empty lives by engaging in endless discussions laced with misogyny.
178 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 1985
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
April 17, 2018
A three-act play where a bunch of losers do drugs, ramble incessantly about life and bang women including a 15-year old. David Rabe is an impressive playwright where he makes me want to set his works on fire. so far, he's 2 for 2.
March 12, 2010
Great. Dialogue snaps and sings, really great dialogue. Pretty tragic play, almost had me in tears at one point. At times seems to be too nihilistic and directionless, but then it proves that thought wrong. Definitely has a Brief Interviews feel to it at points. I really look forward to reading more of Rabe's work.
January 12, 2013
This plays the trick of making you hate these men for much of the play until they say some really lucid things about why we treat each other badly, pecking orders and insecurity. I believe some people in LALA land are this shitty, and I believe they are as playfully willing to admit the ways that they're shit, but I don't believe they are this lucid. But that's what makes it art.
October 8, 2018
Awful. Pointless. Waste of time. Irredeemable characters. I'm mystified that Rabe spent the time and energy writing this, and I'm dumbfounded that the talented director and cast of the original production signed on to stage it. Bits of it reminded me of my least favorite elements of Mamet's plays and P.K. Dick's novels.
August 15, 2011
My reviews may be disjointed. I have a "head full of car horns."
July 28, 2017
Not for the faint of heart, a vulgar romp through four bachelor's coke-fueled lives, and their poor-man's philosophy of life. Meaty roles for actors, and will be interesting to see it staged.
January 15, 2023
There are some things I really like about this, and then there are things I find deeply repulsive. (And I guess that’s the point? But that doesn’t mean I have to like it!) Nevertheless, if I were still acting, I’d really want to play Mickey in a production—preferably one directed by a woman. I’d love to see this play mounted through that lens. I think it needs it, especially today.
February 8, 2025
The men and women characters were all interchangeable for another character of their gender. Really no plot and not even good char development. No bueno. Lots of slutshaming and objectification too. We’ll see what the book club thinks 😂
November 13, 2022
It's too long, too shrill, and too excessive for its own good; it wallows self-importantly in a nasty misogyny that becomes dully repetitive and gratuitous; it relies too much on rough language and rough drugs to jolt its audience. Hurlyburly is like its title (I looked it up: it means "Noisy confusion; tumult"); it's like its hard-to-like and impossible-to-respect protagonists, a group of immature, unruly, unreliable guys who can't or won't connect realistically with women or the world, who are articulate and self-involved but not eloquent or self-aware and certainly not self-actualized. Yet, I wound up liking Hurlyburly more than I ever thought I would--definitely entertained and grudgingly admiring.
So David Rabe has either aced the form-as-content/content-as-form thing, or he's just crafted a piece of theater that works in spite of (because of?) many apparent dramaturgical deficiencies. There's stuff that doesn't really fly in Hurlyburly--dialogue that wants to mimic the poetry of everyday speech, but fails to: that heavily-cadenced, you know, speech that's, uh, supposed to sound, you know, natural and real but sounds instead like bad Woody Allen; not to mention plot points piled on top of plot points in the last fifteen minutes or so that try to explain away the behaviors of some of the characters but never feel anything but contrived and arbitrary--but it finally fails to matter. The noise carries us along; it's easy and even appealing somehow to surrender to the thing and let it sweep us along to its late and bitter conclusion.
It's about four guys. Eddie and Mickey, both casting agents, both in their early 30s, share an apartment somewhere in Hollywood. Eddie's divorced, with two kids; Mickey wears a wedding ring but is on hiatus from his marriage at the moment (he tells us at one point that he will be going back to his wife someday, but it's not clear whether that's actually true). Both play the system and play around, with differing results: Eddie's personality is obsessive and distorted by severe tunnel vision, while Mickey is aloof and detached to the extent that he's barely with you even when he is. When we meet them they're feuding over a woman, Darlene, and it's clear that (a) Mickey will have her when he wants her, and (b) Eddie will be in agony whether he has her or not.
Eddie's best friend is Phil, an actor-wannabe with a violent streak who's in an on-again/off-again marriage with his second wife. There's jail time in Phil's past. Mickey doesn't much like Phil and accurately sizes up the dysfunctional, enabling relationship that Eddie sustains for his pal. Friend to all three, sort of, is the older Artie, another not-very-important cog in Hollywood's machine, but one who's done well enough to feel superior to Eddie, Phil, and Mickey. Artie delivers to them, somewhat startlingly, a pretty young teenage girl named Donna who, he says, was living in the elevator of his apartment building.
We meet a third woman, Bonnie, in the second half of the play: she makes her living as a nude dancer who is famous for using a balloon in provocative ways in her act and for being what we used to call"easy"; Eddie fixes her up with Phil after the latter finally divorces his wife, with disastrous consequences.
Apart from what happens to Phil and Bonnie, which is really ugly, not much else actually occurs in Hurlyburly, except that these people talk endlessly about themselves and their stymied lives. They drink, they do drugs (lots). They talk about having sex but we never actually see them do so.
Now it struck me that if Hurlyburly were set in the present day, these guys would have iPhones, providing a distraction from the desperation that dominates their lives and of which they are very much aware. But in the '80s, the only available diversions were coke and scotch and the sound of one's own voice. So Hurlyburly is a talky, talky play; so how did Rabe keep me involved without giving me characters to sympathize or even empathize with? By giving actors so much fodder for their talent.
Rabe's portrayal of women, by the way, interested me enormously. On the surface Hurlyburly feels offensively anti-woman; Rabe nails the dumb tough talk of immature men who seem to think of women only as bitches. But brute force excepted, women have all the power in the relationships in this play. I don't know if that's Rabe's point or not, but I was intrigued by it.
Such a messy, chaotic play about messy, chaotic lives this turns out to be, with no hope of redemption in sight for the characters or the meandering piece itself. Which is probably the point.
So David Rabe has either aced the form-as-content/content-as-form thing, or he's just crafted a piece of theater that works in spite of (because of?) many apparent dramaturgical deficiencies. There's stuff that doesn't really fly in Hurlyburly--dialogue that wants to mimic the poetry of everyday speech, but fails to: that heavily-cadenced, you know, speech that's, uh, supposed to sound, you know, natural and real but sounds instead like bad Woody Allen; not to mention plot points piled on top of plot points in the last fifteen minutes or so that try to explain away the behaviors of some of the characters but never feel anything but contrived and arbitrary--but it finally fails to matter. The noise carries us along; it's easy and even appealing somehow to surrender to the thing and let it sweep us along to its late and bitter conclusion.
It's about four guys. Eddie and Mickey, both casting agents, both in their early 30s, share an apartment somewhere in Hollywood. Eddie's divorced, with two kids; Mickey wears a wedding ring but is on hiatus from his marriage at the moment (he tells us at one point that he will be going back to his wife someday, but it's not clear whether that's actually true). Both play the system and play around, with differing results: Eddie's personality is obsessive and distorted by severe tunnel vision, while Mickey is aloof and detached to the extent that he's barely with you even when he is. When we meet them they're feuding over a woman, Darlene, and it's clear that (a) Mickey will have her when he wants her, and (b) Eddie will be in agony whether he has her or not.
Eddie's best friend is Phil, an actor-wannabe with a violent streak who's in an on-again/off-again marriage with his second wife. There's jail time in Phil's past. Mickey doesn't much like Phil and accurately sizes up the dysfunctional, enabling relationship that Eddie sustains for his pal. Friend to all three, sort of, is the older Artie, another not-very-important cog in Hollywood's machine, but one who's done well enough to feel superior to Eddie, Phil, and Mickey. Artie delivers to them, somewhat startlingly, a pretty young teenage girl named Donna who, he says, was living in the elevator of his apartment building.
We meet a third woman, Bonnie, in the second half of the play: she makes her living as a nude dancer who is famous for using a balloon in provocative ways in her act and for being what we used to call"easy"; Eddie fixes her up with Phil after the latter finally divorces his wife, with disastrous consequences.
Apart from what happens to Phil and Bonnie, which is really ugly, not much else actually occurs in Hurlyburly, except that these people talk endlessly about themselves and their stymied lives. They drink, they do drugs (lots). They talk about having sex but we never actually see them do so.
Now it struck me that if Hurlyburly were set in the present day, these guys would have iPhones, providing a distraction from the desperation that dominates their lives and of which they are very much aware. But in the '80s, the only available diversions were coke and scotch and the sound of one's own voice. So Hurlyburly is a talky, talky play; so how did Rabe keep me involved without giving me characters to sympathize or even empathize with? By giving actors so much fodder for their talent.
Rabe's portrayal of women, by the way, interested me enormously. On the surface Hurlyburly feels offensively anti-woman; Rabe nails the dumb tough talk of immature men who seem to think of women only as bitches. But brute force excepted, women have all the power in the relationships in this play. I don't know if that's Rabe's point or not, but I was intrigued by it.
Such a messy, chaotic play about messy, chaotic lives this turns out to be, with no hope of redemption in sight for the characters or the meandering piece itself. Which is probably the point.
November 28, 2012
A bunch of drug-fueled guys ramble through their idiot's philosophy while abusing women and failing to make it work in 1980s Hollywood. With the right actors, this could be at turns funny and horrifying. It seems kind of long to me, but I'd have to see it staged to judge for sure, perhaps its the kind of play where the fast pace that would be necessary to make it work would allow for more pages.
These guys are appalling, and so are the women in their world who simply let themselves be passed around, but then that's the point, right? I do wish that Rabe would perhaps specify what part of the industry these guys are in, because while I think there are lots and lots of people like this in Hollywood, I don't think it's believable to characterize all of the industry as this messed up.
That said, it's entertaining in the way of self-made disasters, and I think it holds up pretty well.
These guys are appalling, and so are the women in their world who simply let themselves be passed around, but then that's the point, right? I do wish that Rabe would perhaps specify what part of the industry these guys are in, because while I think there are lots and lots of people like this in Hollywood, I don't think it's believable to characterize all of the industry as this messed up.
That said, it's entertaining in the way of self-made disasters, and I think it holds up pretty well.
January 7, 2011
Confirmed all my suspicions regarding LA in the 80s. Enchanting depravity.
February 17, 2011
oh beautiful depraved LA. David Rabe is a genius. Don't think for a moment that there is no point. Read to the end.
Read
July 29, 2011Not impressed. Very dated, I couldn't see removing it from the '80s & yet it hasn't got the weight or relevance to comment on the decade in retrospect.
February 29, 2012
Could use another edit, I think.
November 3, 2014
A very difficult read. Very few moments where I was invested in these characters. The moments where I was, were good. For the most part though, it was just unlikable.
January 14, 2013
very male-centric.
Read
November 23, 2013Written by crackheads, for crackheads.
November 30, 2014
really did not care for this play, despite knowing that Sigourney Weaver was in it on Broadway. perhaps seeing it performed would improve it for me.
June 16, 2016
Well written play, but it was very hard to get through.
March 5, 2017
This play did very little for me...
August 5, 2024
Reread this whilst on my first trip to LA. This shit is real. Rapateta!!
November 12, 2024
Didn't really enjoy "Hurlyburly" this time around. Granted I don't think I've ever truly enjoyed the play, I just used it for acting scenes and the like. In playwright David Rabe's defense, perhaps "Hurlybury" was always meant to be seen on stage (or on film?) rather than being read as a work of literature "rapateta" or what have you. That's fair. However, since I DID go through all of the play's 153 pages as a work of literature to be read, I can say for sure that I did not like it, nor did I connect with it, nor care about about the play's characters Eddie, Mickey, Phil, Artie, Darlene, Donna and Bonnie. I felt bad for the young and naive hitchhiker Donna, and that's it.
So what's "Hurlyburly" all about? I dunno. Set (and produced) in the mid-1980's, the play concerns roommate Hollywood casting directors Eddie and Mickey. Eddie is a sensitive, self-involved, insecure, alcoholic, drug-fueled scumbag who hates his ex-wife and loves his absentee child. Mickey imbibes in both drink and drugs, has a family he's left behind somewhere, is a scumbag as well yet more cool, cold-hearted and relaxed about it all. Artie is a Jewish Hollywood power-player-producer, a scumbag who constantly courts Eddie's favor, and feels stymied by Eddie's inattention. And then there is Phil...
Phil, a Hollywood scumbag of the violent kind. Phil's an unsuccessful actor with a family he's left behind, a recent wife with whom he fights constantly and has a child with, and who tries to divorce the impossible Phil, and with whom Phil desperately clings to and claims to can not live without. Phil, not shy of drink and drugs, likes to beat-up people, and is the midst of a complete mental-psychological-violent breakdown throughout the entire play...until he offs himself.
ALL of the "Hurlyburly" men are unlikable arseholes, who treat two of the play's three women like low-level garbage, toys to be played with, passed around, then thrown out with the trash. Donna is a teenage hitchhiker "given' by Artie to Eddie, Mickey and Phil to do what they want with her. Bonnie is called over by Eddie to be a sex partner for Phil. When Phil later throws Bonnie out of a moving car, her complaints to Eddie fall on deaf ears. The reason? For Eddie, it's ALL about Phil. The reason, says Mickey, is that Phil is the only scumbag that Eddie knows who is worse off than he is.
Eddie is so insecure, so passive-aggressive and aggressive-aggressive and horribly messed up on cocaine and booze and more cocaine, that its hard (on page at least) to sympathize with his "genuine" true feelings for photographer Darlene. Eddie and Darlene are drawn to one another, yet Eddie's too sick and demanding and desperate to have a real, mature relationship with anyone.
With the willfull misogyny plus the unlikable, dumb, annoying, violent thug Phil as the framework and emotional center of "Hurlyburly," the play became mostly a chore to get through. Sure, the skillful David Rabe could help but offer at least SOMETHING of value with "Hurlyburly," as the play has some interesting characterization and engaging dialogue exchanges. Yet the verbal gymnastics through mixture of intellectual hoops and psychobabble nonsense made for a mostly unpleasant reading experience. Again, perhaps "Hurlyburly" is best seen, and not read.
So what's "Hurlyburly" all about? I dunno. Set (and produced) in the mid-1980's, the play concerns roommate Hollywood casting directors Eddie and Mickey. Eddie is a sensitive, self-involved, insecure, alcoholic, drug-fueled scumbag who hates his ex-wife and loves his absentee child. Mickey imbibes in both drink and drugs, has a family he's left behind somewhere, is a scumbag as well yet more cool, cold-hearted and relaxed about it all. Artie is a Jewish Hollywood power-player-producer, a scumbag who constantly courts Eddie's favor, and feels stymied by Eddie's inattention. And then there is Phil...
Phil, a Hollywood scumbag of the violent kind. Phil's an unsuccessful actor with a family he's left behind, a recent wife with whom he fights constantly and has a child with, and who tries to divorce the impossible Phil, and with whom Phil desperately clings to and claims to can not live without. Phil, not shy of drink and drugs, likes to beat-up people, and is the midst of a complete mental-psychological-violent breakdown throughout the entire play...until he offs himself.
ALL of the "Hurlyburly" men are unlikable arseholes, who treat two of the play's three women like low-level garbage, toys to be played with, passed around, then thrown out with the trash. Donna is a teenage hitchhiker "given' by Artie to Eddie, Mickey and Phil to do what they want with her. Bonnie is called over by Eddie to be a sex partner for Phil. When Phil later throws Bonnie out of a moving car, her complaints to Eddie fall on deaf ears. The reason? For Eddie, it's ALL about Phil. The reason, says Mickey, is that Phil is the only scumbag that Eddie knows who is worse off than he is.
Eddie is so insecure, so passive-aggressive and aggressive-aggressive and horribly messed up on cocaine and booze and more cocaine, that its hard (on page at least) to sympathize with his "genuine" true feelings for photographer Darlene. Eddie and Darlene are drawn to one another, yet Eddie's too sick and demanding and desperate to have a real, mature relationship with anyone.
With the willfull misogyny plus the unlikable, dumb, annoying, violent thug Phil as the framework and emotional center of "Hurlyburly," the play became mostly a chore to get through. Sure, the skillful David Rabe could help but offer at least SOMETHING of value with "Hurlyburly," as the play has some interesting characterization and engaging dialogue exchanges. Yet the verbal gymnastics through mixture of intellectual hoops and psychobabble nonsense made for a mostly unpleasant reading experience. Again, perhaps "Hurlyburly" is best seen, and not read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 18, 2024
So... you ever read something and just wondered if you're missing something? I've read Streamers and really liked it. This one had a movie adaptation and several revivals with star-studded casts every time. It was nominated for Best Play at the Tony Awards.
Then I read it and just didn't care for it at all. I don't mind the drugs and language, but it just feels like someone trying too hard. The casual misogyny hasn't aged well, but that might be forgivable if it led to somewhere. And maybe it's me, but I just don't think people want to see a play about actors in Hollywood. That just feels self-aggrandizing.
Reading the author notes, it seems like he was really aiming for authenticity and "feeling real" as opposed to a typical narrative. That's fine, it just didn't feel real to me.
That said, a lot of people smarter than me loved this play. It's entirely possible that I just need to see it performed live. It's a play, that's certainly possible.
In terms of production, it seems pretty approachable. One set, interior, with a 1980s setting. 3W/4M.
Then I read it and just didn't care for it at all. I don't mind the drugs and language, but it just feels like someone trying too hard. The casual misogyny hasn't aged well, but that might be forgivable if it led to somewhere. And maybe it's me, but I just don't think people want to see a play about actors in Hollywood. That just feels self-aggrandizing.
Reading the author notes, it seems like he was really aiming for authenticity and "feeling real" as opposed to a typical narrative. That's fine, it just didn't feel real to me.
That said, a lot of people smarter than me loved this play. It's entirely possible that I just need to see it performed live. It's a play, that's certainly possible.
In terms of production, it seems pretty approachable. One set, interior, with a 1980s setting. 3W/4M.
October 30, 2020
"Hurlyburly" is everything I hate in a story. All the characters are coked up assholes, just about nothing happens and the whole thing is embroiled in the fog of pseudo-philosophical ramblings. That said, I loved it. I loved the never-ending state of being, I loved the pseudo-philosophical bullshit. I even loved all the incorrigible assholes. Except for Phil. Fuck Phil. Not only does he smack his wife around but he also does it to Donna and Bonnie, both of whom were simply giving him exactly what he wanted. Phil is a whiny and violent prick and, for all I care, he can go drive off a cliff which, incidentally, he did so all is forgiven. The other problem I have is Donna: why in God's holy name did Rabe make her 15? I get why she needed to be young, narratively speaking, but there's something undeniably creepy about 15-year-old girl shacking up with a bunch a bunch of grown-ass men as a fuck-toy. Would it have killed Rabe to just make her 18?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 27, 2025
The theater world went crazy for this when it hit the stage in 84. Rightfully so in many ways- the cast is INSANE and directed by Mike Nichols. Pretty epic.
But seriously. WTF are we talking about here. The language and dialogue is pretty genius and the only thing that bumped this up to a three for me. This kind of beat generation meets chandler noir vibe to the characters and their rants is both realer than real and absolutely impossible. I love that.
But what the hell is this even about and what is the point? I mean. I guess that’s the point, but this is trying to be cool and I’m smarter than you in a way that made me mad. I suspect Rabe is somebody that would make you want to scratch your eyeballs out to hang out with. But man he can write some dialogue.
But seriously. WTF are we talking about here. The language and dialogue is pretty genius and the only thing that bumped this up to a three for me. This kind of beat generation meets chandler noir vibe to the characters and their rants is both realer than real and absolutely impossible. I love that.
But what the hell is this even about and what is the point? I mean. I guess that’s the point, but this is trying to be cool and I’m smarter than you in a way that made me mad. I suspect Rabe is somebody that would make you want to scratch your eyeballs out to hang out with. But man he can write some dialogue.
February 23, 2024
A nihilistic portrayal of a bunch of narcissistic Hollywood players in the 1980’s. Fuelled by ego and pervasive substance abuse, they try and find meaning in there lives. Not a dull moment in this brilliantly written play about very unlikeable characters. David Rabe’s use of dialog is nothing short of fantastic. Loved it from start to finish.
September 27, 2020
This play did not age well -- and yet it continues to be one of my favorites. It's an ode to a time when men were pigs and talked in pages-long monologues about their feelings about each other and it's funny as hell, even if incredibly chauvinistic and super dated.
June 21, 2024
This play is long but it doesn’t feel it really. It feels like these lives could continue in a play for an infinite number of acts and still be fascinating and original. The ending was, although difficult to entirely grasp, satisfying.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews