Streamers

It’s tempting to blame the slackness of the Roundabout revival of Streamers on dated material. In the decades since 1976, when David Rabe’s army drama first hit the boards, the public has endured a platoon of Vietnam exposés. Let us say: Our canteen runneth over. But Rabe’s play isn’t just another war-is-hell yellathon. His barracks drama—rife with homosocial tension among gay Richie (Hale Appleman), possibly closeted Billy (Brad Fleischer) and fed-up Roger (J.D. Williams)—has delicacy, craft and humor. Too bad, then, that director Scott Ellis and most of his cast often seem intent on draining those qualities from the show.

If Ellis is trying for realism, his dynamics are excruciatingly off; the requisite drunkard, Sergeant Rooney (John Sharian), delivers drama-school bluster, and the soldiers substitute business for ease. (There’s a lot of shirt-folding.) In Act I, Rabe seeds his metaphors: A streamer is a dud parachute, one of the script’s many images of men driven helplessly into the ground. The production seems equally doomed. But after intermission, the actors start connecting, especially during Rabe’s lengthy monologues. Although the play’s catalyst and “angry black man,” Carlyle (Ato Essandoh), telegraphs relentlessly, the others balance his excesses, and Larry Clarke is spectacular as Rooney’s blitzed buddy, who swings through the action like a comet. Clarke’s effortless humor and understated command remind us that with the right company, the play might not be so easily dismissed.