Streamers

On November 8th, as part of our ongoing Lecture Series, I interviewed Dr. Robert Vorlicky, who teaches drama at NYU and is author of Act Like a Man: Challenging Masculinities in American Drama. Here is an excerpt from our conversation about Streamers:

Ted Sod: The characters are all trying to define this army barracks as a safe place, even though they’re facing certain death if they go to Vietnam. So what about this intimacy between men drives this play?

Robert Vorlicky: I think that’s a really important question. Part of the battle in this play is how does one speak about the wish for intimacy? Can you feel close to someone just by being able to talk about what’s on your mind? Can you share a dream? Can you share a story? The characters are asking: “If I tell a story about myself or someone I know, how much trust can I get back from you?” It’s almost as if the characters are asking: “Can I tell this story without automatically having who I am be questioned?”

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Congratulations to Streamers! Here’s what the critics are saying:

“A simmering stew of CLASS AND RACE, SEX AND VIOLENCE. Crisply directed by SCOTT ELLIS.”
–Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

“POWERFUL! A CRACKLING REVIVAL of the third and best known play in DAVID RABE’s extraordinary trilogy about soldiers and Vietnam.”
–Linda Winer, Newsday

“‘STREAMERS’ SURGES BACK TO LIFE! A POTENT DRAMA invigorated by A TOP-FLIGHT CAST.”
–Daily News

Streamers takes us into the barracks with four young soldiers fresh from basic training in Virginia as they anxiously await their orders while watching the conflict in Vietnam escalate.

Streamers premiered in 1976 as the third part of David Rabe’s Vietnam trilogy (which also includes The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and Sticks and Bones). David himself served with the army in Vietnam from 1965 to 1967, and out of that period came these powerful plays, each looking at different aspects of war and its aftermath, and each making use of an exceedingly dark sense of humor in depicting these events. What I find interesting is that you can’t pigeonhole David’s work as “anti-war plays.” In fact, he makes no attempt to take a position on war but instead chooses to show us what he actually saw – the relationships between the men, the atmosphere of fear – these moments are about the reality of what these young men faced rather than making an attempt to analyze the experience with the easy aid of hindsight.
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