Streamers at the Huntington Theatre

There's a fine line between staginess and theatricality, and it shifts with changing times and tastes. What struck an earlier audience as stark and powerful drama may leave us shaking our heads at its stereotypes and melodrama - just as, no doubt, some acclaimed works of our own time will come to seem like risible cliches. (Full review)

When David Rabe returned from Vietnam in 1967, the nation was on the brink of upheaval over the violent quagmire in Southeast Asia. Over the next decade, Rabe painted a portrait of that war, and the country's disillusionment, refracted through the lens of young men forced into combat, in what have been dubbed his Vietnam plays - "The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel," "Sticks and Bones," "The Orphan," and "Streamers," the latter of which is getting its first major revival in nearly 30 years courtesy of the Huntington Theatre Company. (Full review)