Realism and Expressionism

While Pavlo Hummel struck audience members as a realistic portrayal of an American soldier's experience in Vietnam, this fact should not obscure the manner in which Rabe's play breaks from the form of theatrical realism. The interior dialogue between Ardell and Pavlo (continuing even after Pavlo's death) gives the play its psychological complexity, in a manner associated with expressionism (conversely, the psychology of characters in realism is revealed externally, through their actions) Rabe writes in his introduction to the play that it was primarily the influence of producer Joe Papp which caused him to refashion his essentially linear, realistic play during the course of rehearsal, giving it the expressionistic structure it was eventually to have (Rabe's career later moved more strongly toward realism).

Rabe has described in interviews his careful bridging of two styles, acknowledging that m Pavlo Hummel he "set up a framework in the...