SOURCE: Kolin, Philip C. “Notices of David Rabe's First Play, ‘The Chameleon’ (1959).” Resources for American Literary Study 17, no. 1 (spring 1990): 95–107.

In the following essay, Kolin recounts Rabe's high school career and the production of his first play, now lost.

Acknowledged as one of the most important playwrights in contemporary America, David Rabe (born 10 March 1940) established his reputation in the early 1970s as the major playwright of the Vietnam War. A veteran of that war, Rabe had seen some of its ravages. Joseph Papp, who helped launch Rabe's career at the New York Public Theater, exclaimed that “He is the most important writer we've ever had” (Gussow 43). Speaking for many critics, Gerald M. Berkowitz observed that Rabe “dramatized the damage done to the American spirit by the Vietnam war more eloquently, perhaps, than any writer in any genre” (136). Rabe's most famous work is his Vietnam trilogy—The Basic Training of...