SOURCE: McDonough, Carla J. “David Rabe: Men Under Fire.” In Staging Masculinity: Male Identity in Contemporary American Drama, pp.103–32. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 1997.

In the following essay, McDonough examines Rabe's depiction of men in his plays.

Although he originally established himself as a playwright of Vietnam plays, Rabe's central concern does not begin or end with war. His focus is more consistently upon myths of identity. Although he explored some myths concerning women in In the Boom Boom Room (1973), his other plays, The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel (1971), Sticks and Bones (1971), Streamers (1976), Goose and Tomtom (1986), Hurlyburly (1984), and even the flawed The Orphan (1974), focus on male systems of identification. Rabe's interest in masculinity has become more pronounced with each play he writes. According to an interview with Toby Zinman, he is working on a trilogy of plays concerning the Gilgamesh legend of male friendship as well as a...