N.Y. gets to see ‘Stuff’

A play that skewers U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has opened to a largely favorable welcome in New York this week, while former generals turn against him in Washington.

“Stuff Happens,” by British playwright David Hare, casts Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney as driving President Bush in a rush to war and portrays former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell as clashing with the others.

First produced in London in 2004 and staged at L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum in mid-2005, “Stuff Happens” takes its title from Rumsfeld’s quip dismissing looting after U.S. troops entered Baghdad. Drawing on recorded quotes, the play re-creates the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, including many closed-door scenes Hare imagined entirely.

The New York Post and New York Times praised “Stuff”; the Wall Street Journal panned it.