Further, the plays move to bloody resolutions; central characters are stabbed with switchblades, blown apart with hand grenades, brutally beaten. Gross and idiosyncratic language matches the intensity of the physical violence; long diatribes often center on racial or sexual conflicts. But the language, however seamy and aggressive in tone, is also mordantly humorous and strangely lyrical. The mixture of these qualities in the theatre results in a singular and distinctive dramatic voice.
David William Rabe was born in Dubuque, lowa. His father, William Rabe, was a high school teacher and later a meat packer; his mother, Ruth McCormick Rabe, was a department store worker. Rabe was educated at Loras Academy, where he played football, and at Loras College, both Catholic institutions in Dubuque. After receiving his B.A. in 1962, Rabe went to Villanova University in Pennsylvania for a master's degree in theatre. Before he completed his graduate work, Rabe was drafted and served in the U.S. Army from January 1965 to January 1967 as a specialist fourth class. The final eleven months of Rabe's tour of duty were spent in Vietnam.
This period, which provided the experience from which Rabe fashioned his three Vietnam plays, was a turning point in his life.
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