In the following essay, Cooper explores Rabe's technique for presenting social criticism in Sticks and Bones

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 two plays of the Trilogy: The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and Sticks and Bones

Rabe worked on both plays simultaneously he wrote several drafts of Pavlo while developing...