Savage, War-Era ‘Streamers’ Focuses on Conflicts Within

Playwright David Rabe specializes in capturing people in extremis. Like bugs impaled on pins, Rabe’s characters struggle on the tip of eviscerating catastrophe.

In “Streamers,” Rabe’s Vietnam-era play, now at the Hudson, the pain extends beyond personal travail to national cataclysm. Unlike the self-inflicted mayhem suffered by the lowlifes in Rabe’s “Hurlyburly,” who really do have the moral capacity of bugs, the pitiable personae of “Streamers” are swept up in a cascade of uncontrollable events that impel them toward tragedy.

The action is set in a U.S. Army training camp in 1965. For the most part, the young servicemen at the camp--some conscripts, some volunteers--have joined the Army expecting a normal peacetime stint. Now, they’re hanging around killing time before being shipped en masse to an obscure little country called Vietnam. And the news from there is not good.

In a savage, unstinting staging, Michael Arabian captures the tensions that result when a diverse group of men, from inner-city blacks to effete urban homosexuals to corn-fed heartland boys, are pushed together in claustrophobic living quarters, then subjected to prolonged boredom, terror and uncertainty. Moments of high humor notwithstanding, this is relentless stuff, rendered by a tight cadre of exceptional performers. Particularly noteworthy are Shawn Woods as a strutting, volatile gang youth who erupts into violence, and Jonathan Breck as the clean-cut, doomed innocent who bears the brunt of his rage.

BE THERE

“Streamers,” Hudson Backstage, 6537 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends March 7. $20. (323) 856-4200. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.