HurlyBurly

***June 2025***

Directed by Rob McLoughlin.

 

Hurlyburly is a darkly funny play written by David Rabe.

Set in a chaotic, drug-fueled Hollywood apartment and revolves around a group of disillusioned, self-destructive friends.

Eddie, is a cynical, erratic Hollywood casting director, searching for the meaning of life in the bottom of a vodka bottle and the 6 o’clock news.

Phil, a struggling actor and Eddie’s best friend, desperately clinging on to reality.

Level headed Mickey, a casting director and Eddie’s business partner and room mate, and Artie, a film producer and source of group envy, all wrestling with their own sense of failure and broken relationships, while their interactions reveal deep-seated frustration with their lives and the world around them.

The women in their lives, Donna, Darlene and Bonnie add further complexity to the narrative, as they navigate emotional and physical abuse, betrayal, and exploitation.

Exploring themes of alienation, consequences of excess, and the characters’ inability to connect on any meaningful level, Rabe’s writing encapsulates the moral decay of the 1980s, reflecting the era’s consumerism, vanity, and cynicism.

Hurlyburly has been described as a critique of contemporary American culture, and a modern American classic, who’s message resonates all too well today.