Tom Hopkins is an engaging and comic as Guy, Chrissy's gay neighbor. He displays marvelous range in the role making split-second shifts from solicitousness to viciousness.

The male character with the least direction is Harold. Spraggins is lost and lifeless in this subtle and demanding role. He is almost uniformly unbelievable, his delivery heavy handed and poorly timed, especially in scenes with Forbes alone.

The supporting actresses all give strong performances. Lyra O. Barrera has great sexual energy as Susan, and though she garbles some lines at the microphone, her delivery is well targeted. Bina Martin clomps convincingly through her role as tragi-comic Sally. Her porcelain face betrays just the right amount of suffering. The women do well in the go-go dances, as they bump and grind chairs on stage to the tune of some mean music; their opportunities to do so are unfortunately limited.

Rabe's script, though innovative, is flawed. Despair and disillusionment too readily become modern cliches, and should be meted out carefully.

What redeems the work in the end is the dialogue, in its acuity and trenchant wit. The levels of diction in the production, either through directorial or textual failings, are almost as numerous as the subplots, but it is hard to complain. The moments of lyricism in the play compensate. Chrissy wants to dance ballet and "other dances that tell a story, of which go-go is only a poor fascimile."

It would be ridiculous to condemn Rabe's work solely for being too brutal. Theater is not a utilitarian concept, nor should it ever be. The playwright, like Chrissy, just wants to tell a story. And as Harold says, "Life's sad. Chrissy, it makes you want to cry." But Rabe never gives us time or inclination to do so between the short scenes as inhospitable to Chrissy as the characters that surround her.

Chrissy in the play swears she is "gonna be a hammer and everyone else a nail in a world of wood." In the Boom Boom Room might make the audience wonder why the world, and occasionally drama, has to be so wooden.