Drawing on material from Undoing Depression by psychotherapist Richard O'Connor, Good for Otto explores the lives of a therapist and his many patients, all trying to navigate personal trauma.
Visiting Edna, which premiered in September 2016 at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, is a drama about the bond between mother and son. As Edna faces a short future plagued by her many illnesses-and a cancer that looms so large it becomes another character-she and her adult son struggle to communicate about their shared past as they contemplate the future.
"Rabe's moving drama [has] a symphonic quality . . . As exciting as it can be to discover fresh new voices, it can be just as heartening to see a veteran playwright return to powerful form, as Mr. Rabe unquestionably does in this sprawling drama about mental illness . . . Mr. Rabe digs into his subject with a depth that almost feels bottomless . . . The play's near-epic nature is integral to its s
Charles Isherwood, The New York Times, on Good for Otto
"[Rabe's] bemused characters glimpse only the barest outline of what one of them calls 'the unrelenting havoc' in which they flounder . . . Rabe . . . has produced a wide-ranging body of distinguished drama . . . Rabe's daringly stylized dramas hover in the realms between the natural and the metaphorical."
John Lahr, The New Yorker
"Remarkable . . . The great American writer David Rabe . . . [is] justly one of the most revered American dramatic writers of the 20th century, and a writer who has, at the age of 75, now penned as comprehensive, heartfelt and even-handed a theatrical look at the issues surrounding mental illness in America as you ever are likely to see . . . [A] thoroughly wonderful play . . . Rabe is a humanist
