Hurlyburly Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Pamela Cooper

Critical Essay by Pamela Cooper

SOURCE: Cooper, Pamela. “David Rabe's Sticks and Bones: The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.” Modern Drama 29, no. 4 (December 1986): 613-25.

In the following essay, Cooper examines Rabe's utilization of expressionistic and absurdist techniques in Hurlyburly and views the play as an indictment of American capitalist culture.

For David Rabe, the Vietnam war has been a source of artistic inspiration and creativity. His political and social consciousness, fused with his command of dramaturgy, produces taut expositions of the encounter between the American psyche and a war which assaulted some of the most traditional American values. His “Vietnam Trilogy” is clearly based on knowledge gained at first hand: he spent two years in Vietnam with a hospital support unit and later tried to return there as a war correspondent. This personal experience of the war is central to Rabe's career. A Fullbright Fellowship then enabled him to complete the first...
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