Through the use of dialogue, music, chant, dance, pantomime, and image, the play satirizes attitudes toward the Vietnam war. It attempts to present the very complicated, tragic, and helplessly divided atmosphere that prevailed in America, and to look at hapless emotions in a hopelessly complex mythology of war. With the technique of "transformations" the play unfolds. People change from flowers to individuals to machines, from one character to another, from character into actor into bystander and back to character or abstract image or comment; women change to men and back to women again. Americans change into Vietnamese into Viet Cong and back to American soldiers. The line of the play follows several soldiers from birth, to induction, to indoctrination, to overseas, to battle, to fraternization, and to death. Along the way we meet their mothers, their instructors, their superiors, their elected officials, their friends and their enemies, their tormentors and finally their ghosts. A strong ensemble spirit emerges via the actors' technique and interaction with one another and with the audience. The form of the play is constructed so as to manifest the reality of theatre--not as a replica of or comment upon life but as a part of life--and thus restore its urgency and relevance.
"...the best new play since THE BRIG and THE CONNECTION...the theme and scope the variety and density of VIET ROCK would have excited Brecht."
Richard Schechner, T D R
"VIET ROCK vividly expressed is a breakthrough...extraordinary on at least two counts. It is the first realized theatrical statement about the Vietnam war...and a rare instance of theater confronting issues broader than individual psychology...I would like to assert my admiration."
Michael Smith, Village Voice
"Wild...an acid indictment...ensemble acting effects that have to be seen to be believed...VIET ROCK has been brilliantly staged, these Open Theater types are contributing something new to the concept and technique of stagecraft."
Tomo., Variety
