David Rabe

Rabe, David (b. 1940), playwright. Born in Dubuque, Iowa, he was educated at Loras College and at Villanova University, then served for a brief time as a newspaperman. His first play to be produced was The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel (1971), which described the disillusionment and death of a soldier in the Viet Nam War. It was produced by Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival, which mounted all his plays in the 1970s: Sticks and Bones (1971), The Orphan (1973), Boom Boom Room (1973)—later rewritten and retitled In the Boom Boom Room—and Streamers (1976). Rabe took a deadly view of Hollywood in Hurlyburly (1984), followed by the less‐popular Those the River Keeps (1994) and The Dog Problem (2001).

• Born: March 10, 1940
• Birthplace: Dubuque, IA

When David Rabe was drafted into the army and ended up serving in a hospital-support unit in Vietnam (1965-67), he wrote about the experiences, expressing the surrealism of the place and time through satire and grotesque humor. His first two plays, The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and Sticks and Bones were a direct result. In the first, he shows the brutality of both sides, the Viet Cong and the American troops, and how the war affected both those who fought and those who did not. Sticks and Bones, which won him the Tony Award as author of the Best Play in 1972, dealt with the plight of a veteran unable to come to terms with his actions, and his homecoming. Streamers, the third play in his Vietnam trilogy brings the drama to an army camp in Virginia. The play, which was also nominated for the Best Play Tony, was made into a movie in 1983.

Rabe was nominated two more times as author of a Best Play nominee: for Boom Boom Room (1974) and Hurlyburly (1985). The latter play was also nominated for a 1998 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best New Play of the 1997 season. Among the screenplays Rabe wrote were The Firm (1993), Casualties of War (1989), and I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can (1982).

Rabe received his bachelor's degree from Loras College (1962), and a master's from Villanova University in Pennsylvania (1968). Rabe also wrote the play The Orphan (1979), a reworking of Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy, two dramas about disillusionment in Hollywood, Hurlyburly and Those the River Keeps, and Recital of the Dog (1995). He is married to actress Jill Clayburgh and they have two children plus one from his earlier marriage.

Most Famous Works

• The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel (1969)
• Sticks and Bones (1971)
• The Boom Boom Room (1974)
• I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can (1982)
• Hurlyburly (1984)
• The Firm (screenplay, 1993)

Rabe, David (rāb) , 1940–, American playwright, b. Dubuque, Iowa; grad. Loras College (B.A., 1962), Villanova Univ. (M.A., 1968). Rabe served in Vietnam (1965–67) and his experiences and observations there inspired his first two plays–The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel (1971, Obie Award) and Sticks and Bones (1971, Tony Award). Both realistically depict the brutality of war and its aftermath using dramatic situations, searing characterizations, and explosive dialogue. In his third wartime drama, the prize-winning Streamers (1975, film 1983), race and sex-based violence tears apart a Vietnam-era Southern army camp. Rabe's best-known play is probably Hurlyburly (1985, film 1998), a gritty and tragicomic exploration of Hollywood's aimless, dissolute, and shallow culture. His other plays include In the Boom Boom Room (1973, film 1999); The Orphan (1975), a version of Aeschylus's Oresteia; Goose and Tomtom (1982); A Question of Mercy (1997); The Dog Problem (2000), a dark comedy; and The Black Monk (2002). He has written the screen versions of his plays and other film scripts, e.g., for I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can (1982), Casualties of War (1989), and The Firm (1993). In recent years he has also turned to fiction, writing two novels, Recital of the Dog (1993) and Dinosaurs on the Roof (2008) and a book of short stories, A Primitive Heart (2005).

Bibliography

See studies by P. V. Kolin (1988) and T. S. Zinman, ed. (1991).

(b. 1940)

1971	The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and Sticks and Bones. Rabe launches his theatrical career with the initial plays of his Vietnam trilogy. The first follows a soldier from boot camp to his death in a Saigon brothel; the second, a Tony Award winner, depicts a fictional version of TV's Nelson family coping with a son's return from the war. A Dubuque, Iowa, native, Rabe served in Vietnam, an experience that would have an impact on much of his work.
1974	The Boom Boom Room. For his fourth play, Rabe departs from dealing with the Vietnam War for a character study of the disintegration of a young go-go dancer in a tawdry Philadelphia bar. Despite mixed reviews, it is nominated for a Tony Award for best play. It is revised in 1974 off-Broadway as In the Boom Boom Room.
1976	Streamers. Rabe's final drama in his Vietnam trilogy, set in an army barracks in 1965, creates a microcosm of American society and attitudes of the time and explodes into murderous rage. It would be adapted as a film in 1983, directed by Robert Altman.
1984	Hurlyburly. Set in a bungalow in the Hollywood Hills, Rabe's play chronicles the lives of four men, separated or divorced, who confront their disappointments in love and in their careers in the movie and television industries. Critics find Rabe's presentation of a world in moral chaos powerful, if sometimes painful to watch. Those the River Keeps (1994) is a prequel, exploring earlier details in the lives of some of the protagonists.

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