[Operation Sidewinder] makes two complementary points: contemporary America is a scene of total madness and brutality, and this is so because a break between spiritual and material values is destined to destroy us. (p. 380)

[Much] of the play is dull. This is due only in part to the impression of aimlessness made by the peculiar sequence of scenes. Contributing even more to a strange boredom is the fact that the play's satire, for all its extravagance and color, is banal. There are random killings, popular obscenities, and a farcically conceived atmosphere of "Wild West" abandon. These are very much like the simplistic blasphemies about the idiotic heartlessness of our reigning mercantile, mechanical and military complex so commonly projected by the juvenile avant-garde of stage and screen.

Yes! Our civilization is coming apart at the seams, with its rip and roar becoming sensible even to the deaf. But how...