HURLY BURLY

After a successful run on 42nd Street's Theater Row in NYC, HURLY BURLY, David Rabe's important play, is moving to 37th street and previews start tonight.

This is a dynamic, exciting, energetic production by The New Group. The setting, direction (by Scott Elliott), and acting are terrific. The play is interesting and compelling from the moment you step into the theater... to the last moment of the play.

My advice would be to get seats as close to the stage as possible. I was sitting in the first row (in the 42nd street theater) and felt almost like I was part of the characters' world. (It is amazing how Ethan Hawke, and all the other actors were able to maintain concentration, a natural life on stage, and tremendous vitality, with the audience barely inches away from them.)

The New Group website calls this play a "shocking, brutally comic reflection on the decade (80's) of decadence." I found it neither shocking nor brutal, but rather a penetrating view of something that seemed very real. Perhaps that's my punishment for having lived through the 80's.

HURLY BURLY at 37 Arts Theater 450 W 37th St. NYC.