Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, The

Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, The (1971), a play by David Rabe. [Public Theatre, 363 perf.] A hand grenade thrown in a Vietnam brothel ends the life of an American soldier, Pavlo Hummel ( William Atherton). Flashing back, Pavlo is seen joining the army, eager to be a soldier and a hero. His gaucheries and his patently tall stories make him a butt of ridicule, but he is undeterred. His sergeant, Tower ( Joe Fields), represents the military establishment, which turns him into a benumbed orderly, while Ardell ( Albert Hall), acting as an involved Greek chorus, comforts him and explains the often‐baffling world to him. At the end of the play his coffin sits alone on the stage. Hailed by Clive Barnes of the Times as introducing “a new and authentic voice to our theatre,” the Joe Papp production was the first in Rabe's trilogy on the war, the other plays being Sticks and Bones and Streamers. It employed the cinematic technique of short, quickly changing scenes to portray an unmitigated, often ugly, picture of war. As such it was a far cry from many more romantic earlier war plays. A Broadway revival starring Al Pacino was a hit in 1977.