SOURCE: Bernstein, Samuel J. “Sticks and Bones by David Rabe.” In The Strands Entwined: A New Direction in American Drama, pp. 95–107. Boston: Northeastern University, 1980.

In the following essay, Bernstein examines and discusses criticism of Sticks and Bones and shows how the play combines realism and absurdism.

A Review of the Criticism

David Rabe's Sticks and Bones¹ joins his plays The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and Streamers to form a trilogy ostensibly concerned with military matters and the moral outrage of war.² Both Sticks and Bones and Pavlo Hummel were first professionally produced by Joseph Papp's Public Theater in 1971; as Mel Gussow informs us, it was the first time that the Public Theater had produced two plays by the same author simultaneously.³ Subsequent to its off-Broadway run, the play was produced at Broadway's Golden Theatre, and an unauthorized version was presented at the Sovremennik Theater in Moscow.⁴ Finally...