The Iceman Cometh is a play by Eugene O'Neill, which was later made into a TV movie in 1960 as well as a big screen motion picture in 1973, both by the same name. It is considered one of the author's finest works. The play was written in New York in 1939, published in 1940, and first produced on Broadway in 1946. A play is a common form of literature, usually consisting chiefly of dialog between characters, and usually intended for performance rather than reading. ... Eugene ONeill Eugene Gladstone ONeill (New York City, October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953 in Boston, Massachusetts) was an American playwright. ... A television movie (also TV movie, TV-movie, made-for-TV movie, etc. ... 1960 was a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... For other uses see film (disambiguation) Film refers to the celluliod media on which movies are printed Film — also called movies, the cinema, the silver screen, moving pictures, photoplays, picture shows, flicks, or motion pictures, — is a field that encompasses motion pictures as an art form or as part of... 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday. ... 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ...

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 him a surprise birthday party. The entire first act introduces the various characters and shows them bickering amongst each other, indulging in their various lines of alcoholic BS, and waiting for 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 nil 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.

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 capriciouly 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. Marlon Brando, Jr. ...

The play was mounted again Off-Broadway in 1956, after O'Neill's death. This production, starring Jason Robards as Hickey, 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. Robards in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) Jason Robards, Jr. ...

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. Lee Marvin, (February 19, 1924 - August 29, 1987) was an American film actor. ... John Michael Frankenheimer (February 19, 1930 – July 6, 2002) was an American film director. ... James Earl Jones James Earl Jones (born January 17, 1931) is a well-known African American-actor who was born in Arkabutla, Tate County, Mississippi, the son of Robert Earl Jones, and raised in Dublin, Michigan, by his maternal grandparents. ... Kevin Spacey as Verbal in The Usual Suspects Kevin Spacey Fowler (born July 26, 1959 in South Orange, New Jersey), better known as Kevin Spacey, is an American actor of Welsh descent. ... gszdgdegsd gdsffdfsd fdsf sdfdsf dfsd fd A tragedy may be defined loosely as any work of fiction in which the protagonist suffers a fall in his or her fortunes, and ends in a worse state than that in which they began. ... Poster for The Perils of Pauline (1914). ...

External links

• The Iceman Cometh at the Internet Movie Database