The Iceman Cometh
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The Iceman Cometh is a play written by Eugene O'Neill in 1939. First published in 1940 and first produced on Broadway in 1946, it is considered one of the author's finest works. The play was later adapted into a TV movie in 1960 as well as a big screen motion picture in 1973, both by the same name.
[edit] Plot
It is set in Harry Hope's decidedly downmarket Greenwich Village saloon and rooming house, in 1912. The patrons are all dead-end alcoholics who spend every possible moment seeking oblivion in each others' company and trying to con or wheedle free drinks from Harry and the bartenders. They tend to focus much of their anticipation on the semi-regular visits of the salesman Theodore Hickman, known to them as Hickey. When Hickey finishes a tour of his business territory, which is apparently a wide expanse of the East Coast, he typically turns up at the saloon and starts the party. He buys drinks for everyone, regales them with jokes and stories, and goes on a bender of several days until his money runs out. As the play opens, the regulars are expecting Hickey to turn up soon and plan to throw Harry a surprise birthday party. The entire first act introduces the various characters and shows them bickering amongst each other, showing just how drunk and delusional they are, all the while waiting for the arrival of Hickey.
When Hickey finally arrives, his behavior throws the other characters into turmoil. He insists, with as much charisma as ever, but now lumped together with the zeal of a recent convert, that he sees life clearly now as never before, because he is sober. He hectors his former drinking companions that they are meaninglessly clinging to "pipe dreams" of some kind of positive change in their lives, while continuing to drown their sorrows exactly as before. (This is true; the ex-cop and carny hustler tell each other they will ask for their old jobs back on the police force or with the circus, the bartender says he will marry his prostitute girlfriend, etc., with seemingly no chance of any of this coming to pass. One character is even nicknamed Jimmy Tomorrow for his constant protestations.) Hickey wants the characters to cast away their delusions and embrace the hopelessness of their fates. He takes on this task with a near-maniacal fervor; few are the characters in all of theatrical history who talk even half as much as Hickey. How he goes about his mission, how the other characters respond, and their efforts to find out what has wrought this change in Hickey, take over four hours to resolve.
[edit] Productions
The play is certainly O'Neill's most ambitious work, and bears the impression of having been written from a perspective of profound despair. It expresses the playwright's disillusionment with the American ideals of success and aspiration, and suggests that much of human behavior is driven by bitterness, envy and revenge. One would think that four hours of this stuff would be difficult to endure, but all the characters are so well explored, with measured doses of wry humor, that the best productions are compelling. The suspense of discovering the true meaning and intentions of Hickey's character usually maintains the audience's interest.
Understandably, this massive undertaking is seldom staged. Even when O'Neill was alive, he delayed its performance on Broadway for seven years, fearing American audiences would reject it. O'Neill was at the height of his fame when he relented in 1946, and the production was a commercial success, though it received mixed reviews. The realistic, seedy language of some of its ne'er-do-well characters was a departure for O'Neill, who was known for writing plays with high-flown and melodramatic dialogue. This play tends to preserve O'Neill's typical passion and intensity while losing some of aesthetic frippery in the language, and risks a certain amount of redundancy as a result, so it is not surprising some critics did not fully embrace it at first. Another problem may have been the performance of James Barton as Hickey. Barton was reportedly not up to the massive emotional and physical demands of such a titanic part, and sometimes forgot lines and flirted with wearing out his voice. Interestingly, the young Marlon Brando was offered the part of Don Parritt in the original Broadway production, but turned it down. Brando later claimed to have read only a few pages of the script the producers gave him, and to have capriciously started an argument about the worth of the play and O'Neill's writing style -- which ended with his rejecting the part, apparently in order just to seem consistent -- rather than admit to his laziness.
The play was mounted again Off-Broadway in 1956, after O'Neill's death. This production, starring Jason Robards as Hickey and directed by José Quintero, was massively acclaimed, and the play was accepted as a true masterpiece. Robards won multiple awards for his performance, and went on to distinguish himself throughout his life as the leading interpreter of O'Neill's great male roles. He was most widely known for his film roles but repeatedly devoted his most serious energies to theatrical roles, and especially to O'Neill. Robards was in a 1960 live television version of the play.
Other noteworthy actors to play the role of Hickey include Lee Marvin, in a 1973 film version directed by John Frankenheimer; James Earl Jones, in a 1973 revival at the Circle in the Square Theatre that was edited for length and criticized for the weakness of its supporting cast; and Kevin Spacey, who was lauded for his 1998-1999 stage rendition of the part on London's West End and then on Broadway. The play is now widely considered to have the dimensions of a true tragedy, whereas many of O'Neill's earlier works would be more accurately characterized as melodrama.
