Poignant Streamers at Huntington Theatre Company
Viet Nam Era Tale Resonates Loudly Today
By: Mark Favermann - Nov 17, 2007
"Streamers" by David Rabe. Directed by Scott Ellis
Huntington Theatre Company. BU Theatre Mainstage. 11/9/2007 – 12/9/2007 Approximate Running Time: 2 hours and 15 minutes. This includes one intermission
http://www.huntingtontheatre.org
"Streamers" is a term used to describe a parachute that fails to open. Tony Award-winning David Rabe's 1965 play is about lives that fail to open as well. Set in a barracks at an Army post outside of Washington, DC in Virginia, the drama focuses upon the interaction between four young soldiers and two grizzled noncommissioned officers.
Though the play is a metaphor for the mid 60's social, racial, sexual and political turbulence, there is also a particular resonance to our own time in terms of war and warriors in regard to our country's current Iraq and Afghanistan military involvement.
This is not a play that is easy to watch. However, if you want to have a meaningful theatrical experience, please go see this sensitively wrought drama. The subject matter is layered and nuanced. All of the acting is naturalistic, forcefully presented and excellent. The staging is spare yet somehow full. A military barracks is the single, very simple setting. Yet, it is highly suggestive. The barracks is a microcosm of the various competing strains of our American world in a time of questionable war. It is also a reflection of societal strains placed upon men, both young and middle age men. Here the dramatist is stating that male adolescence can be frozen in mind and time in the warrior male.
Rabe asserts in his dramatization that self-identity can be a constant struggle in a regimented society, while military discipline can certainly mean lack of individual identity and social disruption. This can result in alienation, fear and loneliness. These concepts are explorations of the inner and outer turmoil and bewildering confusion facing primarily four young men threatened by forces beyond their control. Some are able to cope while others rebel.
The four are each a specific character type. Billy (Brad Fleischer) is the Wisconsin rural kid, educated but incomplete struggling to fit in; Roger (J.D. Williams) is the upwardly mobile, middle class, African-American, Richie (Hale Appleman) is the wealthy Manhattanite who is wrestling with his homosexuality and Carlyle (Ato Essendoh) is a streetwise, ghetto-bred angry, volatile and bitter Black man. The playwright uses each of them as stand-ins for parts of the American society. Each soldier has the Sword of Damocles hanging over his head in the form of being called to fight in Viet Nam.
The two noncommissioned officers, Sgt Cokes and Sgt. Rooney (played believably by Larry Clarke and John Sharian) have entered middle age with adolescence extended. One is the know-it-all and the other is a bully. They are two parts of the same person. Many noncoms acted that way when I was in the Army in the early 70's,and probably still others continue to act like this. Later in the play Cokes drunkenly loses Rooney playing drunken hide and seek. This is virtually the act of both losing and finding oneself. Cokes' own expressed battle scars are our nations anguish and even guilt.
Though the play has been around since 1976 and the Robert Altman movie came out a few years later, I never could make myself go to see it until now. As a Viet Nam era vet, I had very mixed feelings about my conscription and my time spent in the Army from 1970 to 1972. I felt that my own reaction to Streamers would bring back memories of a very past imperfect time in my life. The play did.
Many of the things in the production including the barracks, the bullying sergeants, the soldiers discussing mostly nothing about quite unformed lives and the constant threat of being shipped to possible death in Viet Nam made me cringe. However, with 35 years distance, I can analyze the time and my reaction to it. From my somewhat expert perspective, as an artistic statement, David Rabe hits many of the proper notes.
Though actually begun before the others, this play is the last piece produced of Rabe's Viet Nam Trilogy that includes "The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel" and "Sticks and Bones." Here, he wants to demonstrate how war affects the inner and outer man and sometimes makes him crazy.
David Rabe's play speaks to our time as well. Now and then, young and older soldiers are mixed up in a war that has no clear right or wrong. Passionate yet fearful warriors were/are directed by a government somewhat out of control. Our antiwar feelings are just as nationally confused and not well articulated today as then.
Great art has sometimes come out of war. Goya, Picasso and Turner have among many others all created masterpieces based upon war. It is truly a fertile ground for artists. Streamers may not be great art, but it is damn good. Its nuanced layers are rich for provocation and questioning. Its action is often raw and startling. Its humanity is spot on. Similar to any war, tragically this drama ends with personal and symbolic loss. Pointless death occurs. Individuals try to cope, yet life still somehow goes on.
Though we think that we are much more sophisticated, perhaps even much more clever, than we were 40 years ago, Streamers demonstrates to us that we are absolutely not. This play still scratches open a quite raw wound.
The Cast: Richie-Hale Appleman, Sgt Cokes-Larry Clarke, Carlyle-Ato Essando, Billy-Brad Fleischer, Martin-Charlie Hewson, MP-Augustus Kelley, MP Lieutenant-Cobey Mandarino, Sgt. Rooney-John Sharian, MP-M. Zach Bubolo, Roger-J.D. Williams.
The Crew: Scenic Design-Neil Patel, Costume Design-Tom Broecker, Lighting Design Jeff Croiter, Sound Design-John Gromada, Fight Director-Rick Sordelet, Dialect Coach-Stephen Gabis, Production Stage Manager- Stephen M. Kaus, Stage Manager- Katie Ailinger