David Rabe

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David Rabe , 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 homosexuality tear 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 more recent years he has also turned to fiction, writing three novels, Recital of the Dog (1993), Dinosaurs on the Roof (2008), and Girl by the Road at Night (2010), and a book of short stories, A Primitive Heart (2005).

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

Rabe, David [William] (1940–), Iowa‐born dramatist, after army service in Vietnam and teaching at Villanova University began his career as playwright with The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel (1971) and Sticks and Bones (1971), both published in 1973, both treating the effect of the Vietnam War on people, the latter presenting a blinded soldier returning to his commonplace family and ironically being the only one capable of seeing. The Orphan (1973), also with a Vietnam background, relates the mythology of the Oresteia to modern cruelty. In the Boom Boom Room (produced 1973, published 1975) presents the sleazy life of a tawdry woman. Streamers (produced 1976, published 1977) is a violent depiction of homosexuality and murders in an army camp. Goose and Tomtom (1982) is a two‐act comedy about fights between jewel thieves. Hurlyburly (1984) is a grim comedy drawing upon Rabe's experiences while writing screenplays in Hollywood. Those the River Keeps (1994) has two hoodlums meeting and remembering fearful pasts. The title comes from the criminal underworld belief that a corpse slit open will remain beneath the surface. A Novel, Recital of the Dog (1993) is bitterly comic.

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).