by James Reston
STREAMERS
David Rabe
About David Rabe
Born in Dubuque, Iowa in 1940, David Rabe was doing graduate work in theatre at Villanova University when he was drafted into the army. Assigned to a support group for hospitals, he spent 11 months in Vietnam. Returning to Villanova to complete his M.A., Rabe saw his first Vietnam play, Sticks and Bones, produced there in 1969. The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel was premiered by Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival in May 1971; Sticks and Bones opened there less than six months later, and was subsequently moved to Broadway, winning the Tony Award for Best Play in 1972. Other plays by Rabe include The Orphan, In the Boom Boom Room and Goose and Tom-Tom, all first produced by Papp. Rabe’s most recent play, Hurlyburly, was originally staged at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre by Mike Nichols and then moved to Broadway, where as of early 1985 it is still running. Rabe also wrote the screenplay for I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can. In addition to his Tony, Rabe’s many awards include an Obie for Distinguished Playwriting and the Dramatists Guild’s Hull-Warriner Award.
Production History
Streamers opened at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven in January 1976, under the direction of Mike Nichols, and in April of that year was produced by Joseph Papp at Lincoln Center, with Nichols again directing. Streamers won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award as the best American play of 1976. Rabe wrote the screenplay for the Robert Altman film based on the play.
Characters
MARTIN
RICHIE
CARLYLE
BILLY
ROGER
COKES
ROONEY
M.P. LIEUTENANT
PFC HINSON (M.P.)
PFC CLARK (M.P.)
FOURTH M.P.
Time
The mid-1960s.
Place
An army barracks in Virginia.
MASTER SSU, MASTER YÜ, MASTER LI AND MASTER LAI
All at once Master Yü fell ill, and Master Ssu went to ask how he was. “Amazing!” exclaimed Master Yü. “Look, the Creator is making me all crookedy! My back sticks up like a hunchback’s so that my vital organs art on top of me. My chin is hidden down around my navel, my shoulders are up above my head, and my pigtail points at the sky. It must be due to some dislocation of the forces of the yin and the yang. . . .”
“Do you resent it?” asked Master Ssu.
“Why, no,” replied Master Yü. “What is there to resent . . .?”
Then suddenly Master Lai also fill ill. Gasping for breath, he lay at the point of death. His wife and children gathered round in a circle and wept. Master Li, who had come to find out how he was, said to them, “Shoooooo! Get back! Don’t disturb the process of change.”
And he leaned against the doorway and chatted with Master Lai. “How marvelous the Creator is!” he exclaimed. “What is he going to make out of you next? Where is he going to send you? Will he make you into a rat’s liver? Will he make you into a bug’s arm?”
“A child obeys his father and mother and goes wherever he is told, east or west, south or north,” said Master Lai. “And the yin and the yang—how much more are they to a man than father or mother! Now that they have brought me to the verge of death, how perverse it would be of me to refuse to obey them. . . . So now I think of heaven and earth as a great furnace and the Creator as a skilled smith. What place could he send me that would not be all right? I will go off peacefully to sleep, and then with a start I will wake up.”
—CHUANG-TZU
They so mean around here, they steal your sweat.
—SONNY LISTON
The Play
Streamers
ACT ONE
The set is a large cadre room thrusting angularly toward the audience. The floor is wooden and brown. Brightly waxed in places, it is worn and dull in other sections. The back wall is brown and angled. There are two lights at the center of the ceiling. They hang covered by green metal shades. Against the back wall and to the stage right side are three wall lockers, side by side. Stage center in the back wall is the door, the only entrance to the room. It opens onto a hallway that runs off to the latrines, showers, other cadre rooms and larger barracks rooms. There are three bunks. BILLY’s bunk is parallel to ROGER’s bunk. They are upstage and on either side of the room, and face downstage. RICHIE’s bunk is downstage and at a right angle to BILLY’s bunk. At the foot of each bunk is a green wooden footlocker. There is a floor outlet near ROGER’s bunk. HE uses it for his radio. A reading lamp is clamped onto the metal piping at the head of RICHIE’s bunk. A wooden chair stands beside the wall lockers. Two mops hang in the stage left comer near a trash can.
It is dusk as the lights rise on the room. RICHIE is seated and bowed forward wearily on his bunk. HE wears his long-sleeved khaki summer dress uniform. Upstage behind him is MARTIN, a thin, dark young man, pacing, worried. A white towel stained red with blood is wrapped around his wrist. HE paces several steps and falters, stops. HE stands there.
RICHIE: Honest to God, Martin, I don’t know what to say anymore. I don’t know what to tell you.
MARTIN (Beginning to face again): I mean it. I just can’t stand it. Look at me.
RICHIE: I know.
MARTIN: I hate it.
RICHIE: We’ve got to make up a story. They’ll ask you a hundred questions.
MARTIN: Do you know how I hate it?
RICHIE: Everybody does. Don’t you think I hate it, too?
MARTIN: I enlisted, though. I enlisted and I hate it.
RICHIE: I enlisted, too.
MARTIN: I vomit every morning. I get the dry heaves. In the middle of every night. (HE flops down on the corner of BILLY’s bed and sits there, slumped forward, shaking his head)
RICHIE: You can stop that. You can.
MARTIN: No.
RICHIE: You’re just scared. It’s just fear.
MARTIN: They’re all so mean; they’re all so awful. I’ve got two years to go. Just thinking about it is going to make me sick. I thought it would be different from the way it is.
RICHIE: But you could have died, for God’s sake. (HE has turned now; HE is facing MARTIN)
MARTIN: I just wanted out.
RICHIE: I might not have found you, though. I might not have come up here.
MARTIN: I don’t care. I’d be out.
The door opens and a black man in filthy fatigues—they are grease-stained and dark with sweat—stands there. HE is CARLYLE, looking about. RICHIE, seeing him, rises and moves toward him.
RICHIE: No. Roger isn’t here right now.
CARLYLE: Who isn’t?
RICHIE: He isn’t here.
CARLYLE: They tole me a black boy livin’ in here. I don’t see him. (HE looks suspiciously about the room)
RICHIE: That’s what I’m saying. He isn’t here. He’ll be back later. You can come back later. His name is Roger.
MARTIN: I slit my wrist. (Thrusting out the bloody, towel-wrapped wrist toward CARLYLE)
RICHIE: Martin! Jesus!
MARTIN: I did.
RICHIE: He’s kidding. He’s kidding.
CARLYLE: What was his name? Martin? (HE is confused and the confusion has made him angry. HE moves toward MARTIN) You Martin?
MARTIN: Yes.
BILLY, a white in his mid-twenties, blond and trim, appears in the door, whistling, carrying a slice of pie on a paper napkin. Sensing something, HE falters, looks at CARLYLE, then RICHIE.
BILLY: Hey, what’s goin’ on?
CARLYLE (Turning, leaving): Nothin’, man. Not a thing.
BILLY looks questioningly at RICHIE. Then after placing the piece of pie on the chair beside the door. HE crosses to his footlocker.
RICHIE: He came in looking for Roger, but he didn’t even know his name.
BILLY (Sitting on his footlocker, HE starts taking off his shoes): How come you weren’t at dinner, Rich? I brought you a piece of pie. Hey, Martin.
MARTIN thrusts out his towel-wrapped wrist.
MARTIN: I
cut my wrist, Billy.
RICHIE: Oh, for God’s sake, Martin! (HE whirls away)
BILLY: Huh?
MARTIN: I did.
RICHIE: You are disgusting, Martin.
MARTIN: No. It’s the truth. I did. I am not disgusting.
RICHIE: Well, maybe it isn’t disgusting, but it certainly is disappointing.
BILLY: What are you guys talking about? (Sitting there. HE really doesn’t know what is going on)
MARTIN: I cut my wrists, I slashed them, and Richie is pretending I didn’t.
RICHIE: I am not. And you only cut one wrist and you didn’t slash it.
MARTIN: I can’t stand the army anymore, Billy. (HE is moving now to petition BILLY, and RICHIE steps between them)
RICHIE: Billy, listen to me. This is between Martin and me.
MARTIN: It’s between me and the army, Richie.
RICHIE: (Taking MARTIN by the shoulders as BILLY is now trying to get near MARTIN): Let’s just go outside and talk, Martin. You don’t know what you’re saying.
BILLY: Can I see? I mean, did he really do it?
RICHIE: No!
MARTIN: I did.
BILLY: That’s awful. Jesus. Maybe you should go to the infirmary.
RICHIE: I washed it with peroxide. It’s not deep. Just let us be. Please, He just needs to straighten out his thinking a little, that’s all.
BILLY: Well, maybe I could help him?
MARTIN: Maybe he could.
RICHIE is suddenly pushing at MARTIN. RICHIE is angry and exasperated. HE wants MARTIN out of the room.
RICHIE: Get out of here, Martin. Billy, you do some push-ups or something.
Having been pushed toward the door. MARTIN wanders out.
BILLY: No.
RICHIE: I know what Martin needs. (HE whirls and rushes into the hall after MARTIN, leaving BILLY scrambling to get his shoes on)
BILLY: You’re no doctor, are you? I just want to make sure he doesn’t have to go to the infirmary, then I’ll leave you alone. (One shoe on, HE grabs up the second and runs out the door into the hall after them) Martin! Martin, wait up!
Silence. The door has been left open. Fifteen or twenty seconds pass. Then someone is heard coming down the hall. HE is singing “Get a Job” and trying to do the voices and harmonies of a vocal group. ROGER, a tall, well-built black in long-sleeved khakis, comes in the door. HE has a laundry bag over his shoulder, a pair of clean civilian trousers and a shirt on a hanger in his other hand. After dropping the bag on his bed, HE goes to his wall locker, where HE carefully hangs up the civilian clothes. Returning to the bed. HE picks up the laundry and then, as if struck. HE throws the bag down on the bed, tears off his tie and sits down angrily on the bed. For a moment, with his head in his hands. HE sits there. Then, resolutely. HE rises, takes up the position of attention, and simply topples forward, his hands leaping out to break his jail at the last instant and put him into the push-up position. Counting in a hissing, whispering voice. HE does ten push-ups before giving up and flopping onto his belly. HE simply doesn’t have the will to do any more. Lying there, HE counts rapidly on.
ROGER: Fourteen, fifteen. Twenty. Twenty-five.
BILLY, shuffling dejectedly back in, sees ROGER lying there. ROGER springs to his feet, heads toward his footlocker, out of which HE takes an ashtray and a pack of cigarettes.
You come in this area, you come in here marchin’, boy: standin’ tall.
BILLY, having gone to his wall locker, is tossing a Playboy magazine onto his bunk. HE will also remove a towel, a Dopp kit and a can of foot powder.
BILLY: I was marchin’.
ROGER: You call that marchin’?
BILLY: I was as tall as I am; I was marchin’—what do you want?
ROGER: Outa here, man; outa this goddamn typin’-terrors outfit and into some kinda real army. Or else out and free.
BILLY: So go; who’s stoppin’ you; get out. Go on.
ROGER: Ain’t you a bitch.
BILLY: You and me more regular army than the goddamn sergeants around this place you know that?
ROGER: I was you, Billy boy, I wouldn’t be talkin’ so sacrilegious so loud, or they be doin’ you like they did the ole sarge.
BILLY: He’ll get off.
ROGER: Sheee-it, he’ll get off. (Sitting down on the side of his bed and facing BILLY, HE lights up a cigarette. BILLY has arranged the towel, Dopp kit and foot powder on his own bed) Don’t you think L.B.J. want to have some sergeants in that Vietnam, man? In Disneyland, baby? Lord have mercy on the ole sarge. He goin’ over there to be Mickey Mouse.
BILLY: Do him a lot of good. Make a man outa him.
ROGER: That’s right, that’s right. He said the same damn thing about himself and you, too, I do believe. You know what’s the ole boy’s MOS? His Military Occupation Specialty? Demolitions, baby. Expert is his name.
BILLY (Taking off his shoes and beginning to work on a sore toe. HE hardly looks up): You’re kiddin’ me.
ROGER: Do I jive?
BILLY: You mean that poor ole bastard who cannot light his own cigar for shakin’ is supposed to go over there blowin’ up bridges and shit? Do they wanna win this war or not, man?
ROGER: Ole sarge was over in Europe in the big one, Billy. Did all kinds a bad things.
BILLY (Swinging his feet up onto the bed. HE sits, cutting the cuticles on his toes, powdering his feet): Was he drinkin’ since he got the word?
ROGER: Was he breathin’, Billy? Was he breathin’?
BILLY: Well, at least he ain’t cuttin’ his fuckin’ wrists.
Silence. ROGER looks at BILLY, who keeps on working.
Man, that’s the real damn army over there, ain’t it? That ain’t shinin’ your belt buckle and standin’ tall. And we might end up in it, man.
Silence. ROGER, rising, begins to sort his laundry.
Roger . . . you ever ask yourself if you’d rather fight in a war where it was freezin’ cold or one where there was awful snakes? You ever ask that question?
ROGER: Can’t say I ever did.
BILLY: We used to ask it all the time. All the time. I mean, us kids sittin’ out on the back porch tellin’ ghost stories at night. ’Cause it was Korea time and the newspapers were fulla pictures of soldiers in snow with white frozen beards; they got these rags tied around their feet. And snakes. We hated snakes. Hated ’em. I mean, it’s bad enough to be in the jungle duckin’ bullets, but then you crawl right into a goddamn snake. That’s awful. That’s awful.
ROGER: It don’t sound none too good.
BILLY: I got my draft notice, goddamn Vietnam didn’t even exist. I mean, it existed, but not as in a war we might be in. I started crawlin’ around the floor a this house where I was stayin’ ’cause I’d dropped outa school, and I was goin’ “Bang, bang,” pretendin’. Jesus.
ROGER: (Continuing with his laundry. HE tries to joke): My first goddamn formation in basic, Billy, this NCO’s up there jammin’ away about how some a us are goin’ to be dyin’ in the war. I’m sayin’, “What war? What that crazy man talkin’ about?”
BILLY: Us, too. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. And now we got three people goin’ from here.
ROGER: Five.
ROGER and BILLY look at each other, and then turn away, each returning to his task.
BILLY: It don’t seem possible. I mean, people shootin’ at you. Shootin’ at you to kill you. (Slight pause) It’s somethin’.
ROGER: What did you decide you preferred?
BILLY: Huh?
ROGER: Did you decide you would prefer the snakes or would you prefer the snow? ’Cause it look like it is going to be the snakes.
BILLY: I think I had pretty much made my mind up on the snow.
ROGER: Well, you just let ’em know that, Billy. Maybe they get one goin’ special just for you up in Alaska. You can go to the Klondike. Fightin’ some snowmen.
RICHIE bounds into the room and shuts the door as if to keep out something dreadful. HE looks at ROGER and BILLY
and crosses to his wall locker, pulling off his tie as HE moves. Tossing the tie into the locker. HE begins unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt.
RICHIE: Hi, hi, hi, everybody. Billy, hello.
BILLY: Hey.
ROGER: What’s happenin’, Rich?
Moving to the chair beside the door. RICHIE picks up the pie BILLY left there. HE will place the pie atop the locker, and then, sitting, HE will remove his shoes and socks.
RICHIE: I simply did this rather wonderful thing for a friend of mine, helped him see himself in a clearer, more hopeful light—little room in his life for hope? And I feel very good. Didn’t Billy tell you?
ROGER: About what?
RICHIE: About Martin.
ROGER: No.
BILLY (Looking up and speaking pointedly): No.
RICHIE looks at BILLY and then at ROGER. RICHIE is truly confused.
RICHIE: No? No?
BILLY: What do I wanna gossip about Martin for?
RICHIE (HE really can’t figure out what is going on with BILLY. Shoes and socks in hand, HE heads for his wall locker): Who was planning to gossip? I mean, it did happen. We could talk about it. I mean, I wasn’t hearing his goddamn confession. Oh, my sister told me Catholics were boring.
BILLY: Good thing I ain’t one anymore.
RICHIE (Taking off his shirt, HE moves toward ROGER): It really wasn’t anything, Roger, except Martin made this rather desperate, pathetic gesture for attention that seems to have brought to the surface Billy’s more humane and protective side. (Reaching out, HE tousles BILLY’s hair)
BILLY: Man, I am gonna have to obliterate you.
RICHIE (Tossing his shirt into his locker): I don’t know what you’re so embarrassed about.
BILLY: I just think Martin’s got enough trouble without me yappin’ to everybody.
RICHIE has moved nearer BILLY, his manner playful and teasing.
RICHIE: “Obliterate”? “Obliterate,” did you say? Oh, Billy, you better say “shit,” “ain’t” and “motherfucker” real quick now or we’ll all know just how far beyond the fourth grade you went.