Streamers

by David Rabe

"Set in an army barracks in the early days of the Vietnam War, Streamers has electrified audiences from its first performances with its explosive portrayal of a handful of soldiers and their fatally intertwined destinies- Richie, a wealthy neurotic who cannot resist temptation; Billy, an earnest midwestern straight arrow; Roger, a street-wise refugee from the ghetto; Carlyle, a pathological misfit who threatens the order and substance of their lives; and Sergeants Cokes and Rooney, two aging dipsomaniacal soldiers whose grimly humorous song (about parachutes that fail to open) gives the play both its title and its fundamentally compassionate tone: Beautiful streamer, Open for me, The sky is above me, But no canopy."--Jacket.