SOURCE: Brustein, Robert. “The Crack in the Chimney: Reflections on Contemporary American Playwriting.” Theater 9, no. 2 (spring 1978): 24.

In the following excerpt, Brustein considers Rabe's use of the family to reflect societal problems.

More often than not, American mainstream dramatists continue to explore the causes behind their effects; the event to be excavated is still the guilt of the (generally older generation) protagonists; and the drama retains the air of a courtroom, complete with arraignments, investigations, condemnations, indictments, and punishments.

Take David Rabe, perhaps the most typical and the most highly esteemed of the younger generation playwrights. Rabe has been called the likely successor to Eugene O'Neill—but a perfunctory glance at his accomplishments soon reveals that he has a closer relative in Arthur Miller. Like Miller, Rabe is fundamentally a social dramatist, fashioning vague attacks on the system; like Miller, he identifies the nexus of corruption in the heart...