In the Boom Boom Room
| In the Boom Boom Room | |
|---|---|
| Written by | David Rabe |
| Date premiered | November 8, 1973 |
| Place premiered | Vivian Beaumont Theater |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Drama |
| Setting | Nightclub |
In the Boom Boom Room is a play by David Rabe. It focuses on a go-go dancer whose difficult relationship with her parents has propelled her into a series of unfortunate affairs with both men and women.
Chrissy is a naive young woman who arrives in 1960s Philadelphia with dreams of achieving stardom as a dancer. Desperation leads her to take a job at a sleazy nightclub called Big Tom's Boom Boom Room. While working there, she explores love and sex with a variety of unsuitable partners of both sexes, forms a friendship with a gay neighbor, and tries to resolve troubling issues in her life, including vague memories of sexual abuse at the hands of her father and a cold-hearted mother who had wanted to abort her.
The play originally was written and performed in two acts at Villanova University in 1972. Rabe was teaching at Villanova and the director, Robert Hedley, was chair of the theatre department.
Prior to its staging at Lincoln Center the following year, Rabe added a scene and several speeches to the first act, expanding it considerably, and as a result it was divided into three acts, to the playwright's dissatisfaction. It was restored to its original two-act structure when it was revived Off-Broadway in 1985 and published by Grove Press in 1994.
The play opened on Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont Theater on November 8, 1973 and closed on December 9, 1973 after 37 performances and 16 previews. Directed by Joseph Papp, the cast included Madeline Kahn as Chrissy, Robert Loggia as her abusive truck driver boyfriend/husband Al, Charles Durning as her father Harold, and Mary Woronov as a dancer named Susan. The creative team included Santo Loquasto (scenic design), Theoni V. Aldredge (costume design), and Martin Aronstein (lighting design).
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