David Rabe’s black comedy “Hurlyburly” vivisects the lives of four misogynistic, self-destructive Hollywood types searching for meaning in an ultimately bleak and meaningless landscape. Ion Theatre’s current production, running at Diversionary Theatre, brings out all the shades of humor, amusement, discomfort, repugnancy – and glimmers of humanity – in the acerbic 1984 play.

Set in the decade of excesses, the characters race toward self-destruction fueled by a concoction of alcohol, cocaine, sex binges, self-delusion and betrayal. The play examines the Darwinian struggle for dominance among toxic male friendships.

At the center of the play is hyper-literate but woefully inarticulate Eddie (Fran Gercke), whose turbulent feelings and chaotic ideas are disjointed and intangible. He trades sometimes-girlfriend Darlene (Sara Beth Morgan) with his laid-back and manipulative roommate, Mickey (Matt Scott).

Gercke and Scott ping off each other, but Eddie’s fervor and “semantic insanity” is no match for Mickey’s cool dispassion. When Eddie asks what kind of friendship they have, Mickey’s casual response is, “Adequate.” Despite Eddie’s best efforts to imbue his life and relationships with meaning, the best he’s capable of is adequate – and that’s rather generous.

Gercke portrays the fast-talking Eddie with a frantic, coked-out paranoia. He gives Eddie an undercurrent of inexpressible angst and anguish, though there are moments when he uses volume to connote high emotion. Well cast in the role of Mickey, Scott is all smirks and cruel manipulations. His snide putdowns and distillation of complex relationships into so much psychobabble is both nasty and canny.

Their pal Phil (Tom Hall), a thuggish wannabe actor hired as window dressing when gritty realism is required, exhibits an increasingly violent streak. Artie (Walter Ritter) hides his insecurities behind a façade of glib superiority, but is deeply wounded by Eddie favoring Phil’s friendship over his own. In the struggle for male dominance, Eddie chooses Phil precisely because he falls lower on the hierarchy.

Hall may not have the physical build of a tough ex-con like Phil, but he gets the character’s simmering rage and growing apprehension. Sporting a peace symbol on his large belt buckle indicates just how deluded Phil is about his own violent stupidity.

In this male-centric view, women are traded like tokens – though they are certainly complicit in the misogyny. Artie brings his friends a “gift” of Donna (Morgan Trant), a traveling teen who trades sex for food and a place to sleep. Stripper and single mother Bonnie (Karson St. John) is a party girl up for just about anything.

While Morgan’s may be the most realistic female character, in this cast of misfits it also tends to make hers the most uninteresting. St. John gives an engaging performance as Bonnie, the do-anything “drug person” who gets thrown out of a moving vehicle and comes back for more.

Director Glenn Paris certainly has a feel for the go-go superficialities laced with Cold War anxieties of the times. Tunes from ‘80s hit makers Hall and Oates, Blondie and Queen further set the period. Claudio Raygoza’s costumes reflect the era for the women (with an assist by Courtney Smith’s hair and makeup), though tend to roam farther afield for the men. Raygoza and Scott’s full living room and kitchen set is a marvel on the small and oddly shaped Diversionary stage.

“Hurlyburly” is not so much a play that you enjoy as a play that you muscle through and either appreciate or don’t. What you may appreciate is the humor, and Ion’s hard working cast. It’s riotously funny in places, and uncomfortably so in others. It’s an ugly play peopled with despicable characters, and the rare moments when they display a hint of humanity or approach authenticity come as a refreshing surprise.

Yet the play’s misogyny, after a little while, becomes excessively crass and pointless. How many such portraits of men do we really need to paint? Rabe’s dialogue, though punctuated by physical performances here (kudos to St. John for flipping over the back of the sofa in high heels), is reminiscent of the kind of self-indulgent, substance-induced philosophizing done in college dormitories and quickly discarded as asinine in adulthood.

The danger in wallowing in meaninglessness is that kind of vanity might just rub off on the entire experience.

Cast and credits