Danny Looks Back
by David Rabe

Name: Danny Looks Back
Brand: David Rabe
SKU: 9780573710889
Rating: 1 (1 reviews)

Danny Looks Back Book Cover — Danny Looks Back Cover

Highlights

Male

One Act45 minsPresent DayRole(s) for Senior Actor(s)Bare Stage/Simple SetContemporary Costumes/Street Clothes

Synopsis

In Danny Looks Back – based on Rabe’s short story “Things We Worried About When I Was Ten” – an adult Danny Matz ruminates on his childhood worries: schoolyard bullies, boxing the downstairs neighbor, and missing the night crawlers that come out after a heavy rain.

Danny’s remembrances reflect worries that continue into adulthood, touching on struggles of the working class, fear of uncertainty, and internalized guilt and shame.

Press Reviews

"A terrifying story [told] almost matter-of-factly, which only enhances its chilling menace... Part of the play’s power lies in the viewer constantly having to ask himself how much of the dystopia described is already here and how much is around the corner. Nothing sounds beyond the near future. Are we taking the danger we’re in for granted? Are we so inundated with the inevitability of our demise that we’ve grown weary or cynical of it? Suffocation Theory doesn’t sink under the weight of this burden because of Rabe’s aforementioned prowess with description... The play’s dreamlike quality grows as the action becomes more absurd and threatening."
— The Dallas Morning News

"A chillingly dark monologue... Suffocation Theory is the surrealistic fantasy of a man who has been overwhelmed by the ceaseless flow of violently bad news of all kinds – terrorism, mass shootings, bombings – and has become obsessed with the ‘irresistible idea’ shared by the perpetrators of these monstrous crimes that ‘killing a bunch of strangers would solve whatever problem they thought they couldn’t solve in any other way’... a dazzling piece of theatrical work."
— The Wall Street Journal