Why do I care?

Like the title says - why do I, or you, care about David Rabe?

I had never even heard of David Rabe until I was assigned to do this project.  However, David Rabe I believe is one of the most interesting and well-written playwrights I've read.

Not only is his language phenomenal and his writing style is so unique, but he tackles topics that aren't readily talked about.  Rabe chooses to talk about both the Vietnam War, which is a touchy subject for most everybody, and the disillusionment of Hollywood. 

David Rabe helped continue to pave the way for realistic characters and realistic intentions.  His characters in Hurlyburly and in Streamers are unbelievably realistic. 


"Hurlyburly"

Hurlyburly is one of David Rabe's most famous plays.  This play is following around the likes of Eddie, Phil, Artie, Mickey, Donna, Bonnie and Darlene as they try and navigate the disillusionment of Hollywood while sorting through their own relationships and all the while trying to get jobs so they can still eat.

There are a lot of things that I noticed about David Rabe's writing that gives a huge insight into who he is. For example, he uses lots of very specific stage direction. This throws a bit of insight into how his mind works. Because of his choice of very specific stage direction, it shows how he needs everything to be in a specific place. This could show a bit of an OCD tendency, or a need for his things to stay looking the same, such like one of his influences, Arthur Miller.

He also writes is about how specifically the women were the ones who messed up the relationships, and how the men interacted with the women, rather than the other way around.  The way that he writes shows a lot of action happening to women, rather than with women.  Except when it has to do with women ruining things.  This shows his general relationship with women, and how he is probably misogynistic.

He writing of the dialogue specifically has the characters never stop talking. This is a very specific choice as made by the playwright that could gives us insight when it comes to dialogue about his influences.  Chekhov was a bit like this, in the way that the characters who talked a lot, talked, but the characters who didn't, didn't.  Rabe does this with the characters too.  He doesn't seem to just make characters talk non-realistically.

Here is the trailer for Hurlyburly, which was made into a movie in 1998.

Influences

David Rabe has had several influences throughout his life.  One huge obvious one, is his experiences in the Vietnam War.  In the video posted below, Rabe says, "If I had not been drafted into the Army… the plays would not exist.”  This is a very obvious statement, but it is so true.  It is my belief that if he didn't get drafted, he wouldn't have become such a popular and successful playwright.  
Another couple influences in his life are Arthur Miller and Anton Chekhov.  This gives a huge insight into how he writes and what he finds useful within dialogue.  This also gives us explanation about the amount of realistic dialogue and his bouts of repetition every once in a while within his writing.






http://proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/login?url=http://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/2314393

Background

David Rabe is an American playwright and screenwriter who is best known for his words Sticks and Bones and Hurlyburly.  He has earned many awards, some including a Tony for Sticks and Bones and an Obie award for The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel.  He is currently a college professor in Connecticut with his wife Jill Clayburgh and his three children, one of whom is Lily Rabe.

David Rabe was born in Dubuque, Iowa on March 10, 1940 to William and Ruth Rabe.  Rabe attended Catholic primary and secondary schools and then continued on to receive his bachelor's degree from Loras College, a liberal arts Catholic school.  Rabe then went on to Villanova University in Pennsylvania for graduate school.  But in 1965, he was drafted into the United States Army to fight the Vietnam War.  He fought in the Army for about two years and then returned to earn the rest of his M.A. from Villanova in 1968.

When he was in Vietnam, he refused to keep a journal because he didn't want to remember what happened over there.  However, some of his most renowned work came from his experiences of war.  While he was in Vietnam, he finished his first trilogy - three plays all based on his observations and experiences overseas.  They're called The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, Sticks and Bones, and Streamers.  These plays "depict the ruthlessness and horrors of battle and the effects of war on all those involved, combatants and noncombattants alike. His plays include tales of tormented war veterans, stories of the brutilization of American troops, and dramas of violence and prejudice within army camps."

Rabe didn't only write about the Vietnam war.  He also wrote plays such as Hurlyburly  and Those the River Keeps.  These plays are about Hollywood and what it is truly like.  Both of these plays wrote numerous awards and Hurlyburly was later created into a major motion picture.  Even though his most famous plays are about Vietnam, the writing of the plays, whether they deal with the disillusionment of Hollywood or the disturbing reality of what was the Vietnam War, both cut so deep into the human psyche and the human compassion.


Major works:

Plays

• The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel. New York: Viking Press 1971.
• Sticks and Bones. New York: Viking Press 1973.
• Streamers. New York: Knopf: Distributed by Random House, 1977.
• Hurlyburly. Chicago: Grove Press 1985.
• Those the River Keeps. New York: Grove Weidenfeld 1991.

Screenplays

• I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can. Paramount, 1982.
• Casualties of War. Columbia, 1989.
• The Firm. Paramount, 1993.

Novels

• Recital of the Dog. New York: Grove Press, 1993.
• The Crossing Guard. Westport, CT: Hyperion Press, 1995.

Rabe sitting at a coffeetable

http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Rabe__David.html