Stuff Happens is a play by David Hare, written in response to the Iraq War. Hare describes it as "a history play" that deals with recent history. The title is inspired by Donald Rumsfeld's response to widespread looting in Baghdad: "Stuff happens and it’s untidy, and freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.” (April 11, 2003) The play presents a mix of viewpoints, including arguments for and against the attack on Iraq. It mixes verbatim re-creations of real speeches, meetings, press conferences and fictionalized versions of private meetings between members of the Bush and Blair administrations. The play also includes international figures such as Hans Blix and Dominique de Villepin. An ensemble cast plays over 40 roles during the 3-hour play, although the actors playing the principals—Bush, Rice, Powell—play only one role. In 2020, Andy Propst of Time Out dubbed Stuff Happens "one of the most impressive political dramas to emerge in recent memory" and ranked it the 30th greatest play of all time. Characters Plot and Style David Hare's Stuff Happens is a play about the events that led up to the 2003 Iraq War. The play focuses on the diplomatic side of the war. The play begins at George Bush's election in November 2000 and ends around April 2004. Parts of the dialogue are direct quotes from the characters' real-world counterparts. The play is about real people and real events that had occurred. Hare states that "the events within [the play] have been authenticated from multiple sources, both private and public." Hare also stated that the dialogue is not “knowingly untrue” but he had to sometimes “use his imagination” to cover events that were not recorded verbatim, admitting that his play is not a documentary as such. The events during the play are as follows: Act One- Scene 1 through 3: These scenes serve as an introduction to the play and the characters. Scene 3 focuses specifically on background information on the main characters before the plot begins. Scene 4: The National Security Council starts the meeting talking about the issues in the Middle East, specifically what's going on between the Israelis and the Palestinians. After talking briefly about this issue, Bush then wants to shift the conversation towards Iraq. The CIA believe that Iraq has a plant at an abandoned warehouse to produce chemical or biological weapons.