30 PLAYS IN 30 DAYS: Play #11 "Sticks And Bones" by David Rabe

 

I have decided for the month of September to read 30 plays in 30 days. It is my belief that, if possible, a play should be read in one sitting to get a better inherent sense of the dramatic arc. Each day, I will write a short post here about the play of the day.

Play #11

Sticks and Bones by David Rabe

Until today, I had never read any of the plays that make up what is considered David Rabe's Vietnam quartet--- The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, Sticks and Bones, The Orphan  and Streamers. Strangely enough, I had read Christopher Durang's The Vietnamzation of New Jersey, which is a pretty merciless (and very funny) parody of Sticks and Bones. In college, I read Rabe's Hurlyburly and felt I was supposed to like it more than I did. Don't get me wrong, I think it is a fine play, but I never went gaga over it the way so many of my classmates seemed to, which may be why I never went out of my way to read more of his work. 

Having said this, I think Sticks and Bones is quite powerful and raises a great deal of conversation points about war, PTSD, racism, and America wanting to pretend that everything is fine, just fine, and back to normal, without taking full stock of the horrors and atrocities of war. 

Rabe was drafted into the Army in 1965 and served in a medical unit until 1967.  He returned to Villanova to earn his M.A. in playwriting, where he began work on Sticks and Bones. He became a sensation with his first two plays, and none other than Joseph Papp (whose importance in American Theater is hard to calculate, only to say that it is immeasurable) suggested that he was the most important American playwright since Eugene O'Neill. In 1973, Rabe wrote a teleplay that was directed by Robert Downey, Sr. for CBS. The subject matter was deemed so controversial that half of the affiliates refused to air it. 

I do not find this surprising. Sticks and Bones is the very darkest of black comedies, and turns an often unflattering mirror on America. Rabe names his characters after the famous sitcom family of Ozzie and Harriet--- father Ozzie, mother Harriet, and the two all-American young men, oldest son David and younger son Ricky. In this play, David returns from Vietnam, having been blinded in the war. While Ricky just wants to eat his mother's homemade fudge and strum on his guitar, and Ozzie and Harriet want everything to be fine, just fine, David is haunted by war, as well as his relationship with a Vietnamese woman who he dared not bring back home with him, as his parents are astoundingly racist.  David continues to go deeper into his rage and despair, and is completely disgusted by his family and their values. Harriet believes their family priest can help. Ozzie begins to doubt his manhood and worth, and believes an inventory of all of his possessions and their cost will fill this new doubt in him. Meanwhile, Ricky just wants to play his guitar, eat his mother's homemade sweets, and go out at night to hook up with girls without a decent reputation in secret. The tension builds as David continues to break down the facade of this "happy" and "normal" household. And the shocking ending shows to what lengths the family would keep the illusion of their normalcy than deal with their war traumatized son. 

Clearly, Rabe intended this family and their reaction to stand in for how many Americans treated the Vietnam war, and the physically and emotionally damaged soldiers who returned. 

So no wonder CBS didn't want to show such a thing on television, a piece darkly satirizing the sitcom lies normally scheduled. 

I look forward to reading more of these pieces by Mr. Rabe.