A Sting in the Tale

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. In The Burning Ship, adapted from Rabe's short story “Suffocation Theory," an unnamed narrator describes the nightmare world crumbling around him. As the TV blares news of ecological collapse, shootings, and war, the man's immediate surroundings grow equally sinister, threatening to turn his concern into paranoia, and his self-preservation into violence.