A graduate of the Playhouse Acting School in Vancouver, Rabe is best known for her appearances in the Australian films Sirens, Cosi and Paradise Road, and for starring as Joan Ferguson in the television drama series Wentworth.

[citation needed] Rabe is a prolific contributor to theatrical life in her adopted country in acting and directing, across a wide range of genres - musicals, comedy and drama.

Rabe was once described by Melbourne theatre critic Alison Croggon as having the sort of presence that "makes shy people swallow hard and lesser mortals involuntarily bow".

[3] Some of her other high-profile acting roles include Amanda Wingfield in Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie at Belvoir, for which she won a Helpmann Award, Nora Boyle in Patrick White's The Season at Sarsaparilla, for which she won a Green Room Award for Best Actress,[4] Richard III in the Sydney Theatre Company production of The War Of The Roses, which co-starred Cate Blanchett as Richard II.

In late 2017, Rabe played the roles of Helene Alving in Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts for Sydney's Belvoir St Theatre, Mrs. Higgins in the Julie Andrews-directed revival of My Fair Lady (replacing Robyn Nevin), and the role of Mary in Colm Tóibín's The Testament of Mary, at the Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne.

[15] On 1 November 2024, it was announced that Rabe would join Bert La Bonté for the 2025 Black Swan Theatre Company production of August: Osage County.

[16] On 20 January 2025, it was announced that Rabe and Tamsin Carroll won the award for Best Performance in a Leading Role for August: Osage County.

Following this, she appeared in 1996's Cosi (with Ben Mendelsohn, Barry Otto, and Toni Collette), Lust and Revenge (directed by Paul Cox).

In 1997, she appeared in Paradise Road (starring Glenn Close and set during World War II) as well as playing Hester in The Well (an adaptation of Elizabeth Jolley's novel of the same name), for which she received an Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress.