5 - Males articulating women

Summary

Of my several comparisons, the Hare–Rabe juxtaposition is problematic, since the prolific Englishman is given to witty forays into contemporary British institutions, whereas the American commands attention by his gritty brush with American misogynistic males. Both men are, however, unusually sensitive to the position of women in their stage patriarchies. While some feminists debate whether men can be feminists, these two men dramatize moral sewers in which women are degraded. Rabe's few marginal females contrast markedly with the many vivacious women of Hare, who stridently verbalize their discomfort in the upper echelons of contemporary British society. Both dramatists write with a keen awareness of masculine privilege in their respective countries, a privilege that includes speech, but Hare's women characters are expressive on stage, whereas those of Rabe are barely articulate.

The American critic Philip Kolin has written: “If Miller, Williams, and Albee form a first generation triumvirate in the American theatre, then Rabe securely stands with Mamet and Shepard as the triumvirate of the second generation of American playwrights since 1945” (David Rabe: A Stage History, p. 98). It seems to me that Rabe stands most “securely” with Mamet and Shepard in their predilection for plays of male bonding and/or masculine maturation, so that they rarely endow their woman characters with dynamic dialogue. Turning from the all-American trio of playwrights to an Anglo–American pair, I am fascinated by the different feminine speech patterns of Rabe in his few plays and Hare in his many.