Rich reviews Rabe's play, assessing it as the culmination of the author's previous efforts and a work of riveting theatricality.

Streamers is the great play that has been trying in several guises and with several degrees of success to burst out of David Rabe in the five or so years he has been on the scene. It is at the Mitzi Newhouse now, in a stunning production directed by Mike Nichols; neither author nor director has come close to this level of accomplishment in the past, and I urge you to share with me the keen pleasure of having your faith restored in the power of American drama to make important and worthwhile sense.

Rabe's play may (or may not; it isn't important) form a trilogy with his two other works about the Vietnam war (Sticks and Bones and Pavlo Hummel). On its own, it is a...