It is the story of two low-rent hustlers who try to outscore a local drug dealer and find themselves hiding out in an apartment waiting for the right time to make good their escape. After introducing one of of the hustler's childhood friends called in for help, the story quickly takes on more depth, solid characterization and moral study than its meager 50-odd pages conveys. Riff Raff is a solid piece of storytelling and you can tell that it's been written by an actor: its sweeping monologues would challenge the reserves of any county fair auctioneer, while its way of telling the life stories of the characters in such little time speaks to the more-than-capable abilities of the play's acting-minded autuer and not to any characters' lack of depth.

While it has a great deal of profanity, it doesn't push the reader away from the story. A must for anyone interested in theater, college students majoring in acting or creative writing, and writers of short stories of any stripe, as it spoke to me.


If you like plays, this is a solid, engaging bit of work.   August 27, 1999
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

This is the first play by noted film actor Laurence Fishburne, which, to no one's surprise, has had a critically successful run of performances in Los Angeles and New York in the past couple of years. The challenge of the play in book format was whether or not I could "see" the play as I read it. I could, and what a sight it was!

It is the story of two low-rent hustlers who try to outscore a local drug dealer and find themselves hiding out in an apartment waiting for the right time to make good their escape. After introducing one of of the hustler's childhood friends called in for help, the story quickly takes on more depth, solid characterization and moral study than its meager 50-odd pages conveys. Riff Raff is a solid piece of storytelling and you can tell that it's been written by an actor: its sweeping monologues would challenge the reserves of any county fair auctioneer, while its way of telling the life stories of the characters in such little time speaks to the more-than-capable abilities of the play's acting-minded autuer and not to any characters' lack of depth.

While it has a great deal of profanity, it doesn't push the reader away from the story. A must for anyone interested in theater, college students majoring in acting or creative writing, and writers of short stories of any stripe, as it spoke to me.