The Vietnam Plays by David Rabe

Author:David Rabe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 1993-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

AUTHOR’S NOTE

If the character of Pavlo Hummel does not have a certain eagerness and wide-eyed spontaneity, along with a true, real, and complete inability to grasp the implications of what he does, the play will not work as it can. Pavlo is in fact lost. He has, for a long time, no idea that he is lost. His own perceptions define the world. He never understands that he provokes Kress or anybody else. When in the furnace room he responds to Kress’s having told him he has his head up his ass, there is no cleverness in his response. He meant it to be clever but could not manage the words. He must make do with less than the situation demands; yet he is proud of having come as close as he did and is sure his quip will do. There must be something of the clinical neurotic in what he is and does. Nor can he be a street kid: this is what he is not, but wants to be. He is from middle income. Even with no father and with the mother he has, he was raised among middle-class kids. He has romanticized the street-kid tough guy and hopes to find himself in that image. It is Pavlo’s body that changes. His physical efficiency, even his mental efficiency increases, but real insight never comes. Toughness and cynicism replace open eagerness, but he will learn only that he is lost; not how, why, or even where. His talent is for leaping into the fire.

The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel was first produced by Joseph Papp, May 20, 1971, at the New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater, under the direction of Jeff Bleckner, with the following cast (listed in order of appearance):

PAVLO HUMMEL William Atherton

YEN Victoria Racimo

ARDELL Albert Hall

SERGEANT TOWER Joe Fields

CAPTAIN (ALL OFFICERS) Edward Cannan

CORPORAL Anthony R. Charnota

KRESS Earl Hindman

PARKER Peter Cameron

PIERCE Robert Lehman

BURNS Stephen Clarke

HENDRIX D. Franklyn Lenthall

HINKLE Edward Herrmann

RYAN John Walter Davis

MICKEY Frederick Coffin

VOICE OF MRS. SORRENTINO Victoria Racimo

MRS. HUMMEL Sloane Shelton

SERGEANT BRISBEY Lee Wallace

JONES Garrett Morris

SERGEANT WALL John Benson

MAMASAN Christal Kim

SMALL BOY Hoshin Seki

GRENNEL Tom Harris

PARHAM Bob Delegall

FIRST VIETCONG Hoshin Seki

SECOND VIETCONG Victoria Racimo

Associate Producer, Bernard Gersten; set by David Mitchell; costumes by Theoni V. Aldredge; lighting by Martin Aronstein.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.