'Hurlyburly' brings Hollywood to Jobsite stage
After being put off for years, the biting critique of Tinseltown finds a spot on the theater's schedule.
By Marty Clear, Times correspondent
Published August 9, 2007
PREVIEW
Hurlyburly
Hurlyburly tonight through Aug. 26 at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center's Shimberg Playhouse. 8 p.m. Thursday to Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday. $19.50 and $24.50 plus service charge. (813) 229-7827 or www.tbpac.org.
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Jobsite Theater has been planning its upcoming production of David Rabe's Hurlyburly for almost a decade.
Ever since Jobsite was founded in 1998, company officials have had Hurlyburly on the short list of plays they wanted to produce. But as they tried to balance artistic and commercial considerations while offering a variety of styles and milieus each season, Rabe's dense and disturbing play about Hollywood in the 1980s never quite fit the mix.
"We were just never able to make room for it on the schedule," said Jobsite producing director David Jenkins.
Finally, Jobsite officials decided that Hurlyburly's time had come. They had always designed one season at a time, but they wanted to do Hurlyburly so badly, they scheduled it two years in advance, making it the anchor and final show for the 2006-2007 season. Then they built the rest of the season with Hurlyburly in mind.
"It's a look at the underbelly of Hollywood, the kind of dog-eat-dog world it really is," associate director Shawn Paonessa said.
Rabe is best-known for his work as a playwright, including his trilogy of Vietnam plays Sticks and Bones, The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and Streamers in the late 1960s through the mid 70s. But he has ample Hollywood experience. Several of his plays, including Hurlyburly, have been turned into films. He also wrote the screenplay for Casualties of War and co-wrote the screenplay for The Firm.
One reason Jobsite didn't want to wait much longer to produce Hurlyburly, Jenkins said, was that the company's core group of actors are now at about the same age as the play's driven, drug-fueled and self-absorbed characters.
"In a sense, I think we've grown into this play," Jenkins said.
Rehearsals had been going along smoothly until a couple of weeks ago, when director Jason Evans had to drop out because of a personal emergency.
Paonessa, who besides being a Jobsite board member is an experienced actor, director and playwright, had seen a rehearsal and offered some suggestions. Jenkins asked him to take over, and Paonessa agreed.
"Our board members had seen a run-through, and Shawn seemed to have the best insights," Jenkins said.
It wasn't easy for the actors to change directors in mid-stream, but the switch actually refreshed the actors' production.
"He brought in a fresh pair of eyes," Jenkins said.
"He asked us why we were making the choices we were making. Sometimes that forced us to think about why we were doing what we were doing. Other times we said 'Well, actually, I don't know why I'm doing that.' "
Marty Clear can be reached at mclear@tampabay.rr.com.