Rating: 
Summary: Like Watching a Train Wreck
Review: ...you know that your fascination is morbid, but you can't tear your eyes away from the awfulness of it: the sheer ghoulish drama unfolding before you like some sick joke of the gods.
I remember the first time I watched this play. I believe it was Lee Marvin's portrayal of Hickey on a presentation of American Playhouse. I was held from first to last with that jaw-gaping awe that only the best dramatic works can inspire.
This is a rare work of the highest measure. It combines its existential angst with portrayals so uncluttered that we are spared the usual contortions of the literati. To be sure, there is symbolism and allusion enough: the entire play takes place in a bar called "Hope"; the setting is a meat packing district, literally the most dead end of dead ends; Hickey sells for a living, a profession that trades on hopes and fears. But these are just passing nods to the writer's craft. O'Neill includes them to keep the acolytes happy. The story depends on neither its setting nor its devices. It would work as well set in some professional clubs I know.
This play is concerned with the necessity of delusions. The various characters assembled around the bar waiting for Hickey's appearance are different flavours of delusion. It's like Dante's Inferno, with each character defining a different circle of hell. And when Hickey shows up, his effect is not much short of Satan's.
No one could write a play like this today. We have become a society so steeped in cool cynicism that we have lost our authenticity. Today, a theme like O'Neill's could only be invoked with a veiled smirk. Think of all the recent movies that have dealt with this thesis: they are either clichéd, cruel or contemptuous. Consider, for example, "American Beauty". Delusion is a topic we approach with patronizing disdain for fear of seeming earnest.
What is the line between delusion and hope? Is hope itself delusional? Perhaps all humans are fundamentally flawed and can only avoid despair by wrapping ourselves in a cloak of unreality and fantasy. Hope is a crutch; avoidance is therapy; unflinching reality leads only to death or to madness. Heavy stuff.
It doesn't matter whether you agree or disagree with O'Neill's thesis because this play wasn't written to advance a specific point of view; it was written to exorcise demons. All of O'Neill's great plays were, to varying degrees, products of his suffering. This one came closest to connecting his personal pain with universal aspects of the human condition. This theme scares us because we are all so very vulnerable to self-delusion, and O'Neill's unsparing scrutiny exposes our own fear and pain so candidly that we are forced into self-reflection and humility. This empathy is at the heart of all the great tragedies: we could be as foolish as Lear, as jealous as Othello, as ambitious as Faust, or as delusional as Hickey. Don't set yourself higher than these figures: there but for the grace of God go I.
Rating:
Summary: Heavy
Review: A quickly read, depressing story of the shattering of dreams. The tale is so descriptive of its hard times that you can imagine it taking place in the dingiest, dreariest dive bar you ever set foot inside. The characters are cranky and irritating, and yet you can somehow appreciate the rut they're in and pity them. The play is brilliant in its power to describe in the briefest way the desperation of these souls, and their willingness to buy their ticket to freedom when the Iceman comes to town. Great surprise finish as well.
Rating:
Summary: Destroy The Dream And You Destroy The Man
Review: During one of the lowest periods of his adult life, from 1911 through about 1915, Eugene O'Neill lived, off and on, in three New York flophouses. These were Jimmy the Priest's, the Hell Hole, and the Garden Hotel. An amalgam of these three served as the model for Harry Hope's in THE ICEMAN COMETH. With the exception of Hickey, every character in the play was based on a friend or acquaintance from this period of his life.The play, written in the 1940's, is set in 1912. All, or almost all, of the down and out residents at Harry Hope's had once lived fairly normal lives with jobs, families, and plans for the future. Each man had a pipe dream, fulfillment of which, he thought, would give him a better life. Each man also had a reason why he could never fulfill his pipe dream. The high point of their lives would come each year on the eve of Harry Hope's birthday when a salesman named Hickey would arrive to begin his periodic binge, For the duration of his stay, the drinks would flow, on Hickey, of course, and an atmosphere of celebration would fill Harry Hope's His visit in the year of the play was different. A new Hickey showed up. This version of Hickey was a messianic salesman who had seen the light and was determined to sell his friends on the necessity of seeing the same light. He told them that he no longer needed the relief that booze had brought him in the past and that he was freed of his problem with pipe dreams. His message was that they could do the same. One by one, he dismantled their pipe dreams and pressured them into trying to make their pipe dreams real. He succeeded in sowing seeds of misery in each of them, and each soon discovered that his pipe dream was all he had. Without his pipe dream he had nothing to live for. They detected that Hickey might not really be as happy as he had let on and they challenged him to reveal how he had rid himself of his problem with pipe dreams so successfully. Hickey, in an almost manic mood, then described a life of drunkenness, dishonesty, and infidelity, including contracting venereal disease and transmitting it to his wife. She had always forgiven him for his infidelities and abuses because she had a pipe dream that he would reform. In his guilt, knowing that he would never reform, he began to hate her pipe dream and her along with it. Because of his fear that she would eventually be unable to forgive him further, he destroyed her pipe dream by murdering her in her sleep. While he was relating this, two detectives who had been searching for him had arrived and heard this confession. When he realized that they had heard, he immediately claimed that what he had just said was the result of insanity. Everyone seized on the word insanity and, convinced themselves that Hickey was insane, rationalized going back to the pipe dreams that he had destroyed, and thus back to their harmonious existence. Each character then narrated a face-saving version of what had happened when he had attempted to fulfil his pipe dream and failed. O'Neill has made a powerful case that each man must have his pipe dreams, and that if you destroy his pipe dreams you destroy him. Although some plays seem to be meant to be seen but are not particularly readable, THE ICEMAN COMETH is one that succeeds on both levels. Read it. See it. It's powerful either way.
Rating: 
Summary: This Book Rocketh
Review: In his play, Eugene O'Neill describes Harry Hope's bar and the depair among its customers during the early part of the 20th century. In the bar you meet tons of characters who have dreams but have no motivations to achieve them. So instead they drink and drink and along with their booze goes their ambitions. So as Harry's birthday get closer all the bar flies anxiously await the arrival of their pal, Hickey. But with him comes a surprize. Hickey brings with him a new way of life and it is up to the customers whether or not they accept his theory for obtaining peace. This is a great play with a interesting ending. Should be read by all.
Rating:
Summary: Ringing approval
Review: O'Neill's finest drama, The Iceman Cometh, is a compelling tale of desolation. The play centers around its characters hope for a different and more fulfilling life. Driven to hide from society and anathetize their problems with alchohol and pipe dreams, deluding themselves into thinking their lives have a psuedo-promise for a vague future imporvement; the characters converge in Harry Hope's squalid bar in New York City's meat-packing district. There, they live a past-obsessed life based incongrously on a fantasy future. When Hickey, an old friend who comes to the bar on periodic binges, comes and forces the others to confront their pipe dreams, we learn the value of sustaining illusions to those whose lives are so desolate that they have nothing else to live for. The Iceman Cometh is a classic of the American theater and I wholeheartedly reccomend it to everyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Unnecessary dialouge a distraction
Review: The Ice Man Cometh was the first play I read of Eugene O Neil and I was throughly disappointed. The play is incredibly slow and lacks action or movement. A synopsis of the play is simple, a group of men, all "washed up" sit around in a bar and live on their "pipe dreams" (you'll hear that word repeated over and over, in other words their dreams for tomorrow that will never come true, or their reworking of the past, in order to provide them with pleasant memories)till Hickey (a salesman) comes along and attempts to save them all. In the first few pages, you'll learn everyone's past, which are very stereotypical and made to order, and their pipe dreams. Leaving the remainder of act 1 a waste of repetition. The greatest points of play come some point after Hickey has arrived and the characters are on edge. Here O' Neil's dramatic tension can be marveled at. The end of the play is a surprise, and is well worth the short fourth act. The Iceman Cometh is a nihilistic work that plays on basic assumptions --- the things being said here are known and perhaps only illustrated. It took me two weeks to finish this play and in between act two and three I dreaded reading more. After completing my reading, I have a much better perspective on the work and only wish O' Neil would have cut a lot of the unnecessary dialogue. I don't know whether to recommend this work or not. The play seems a work of its time.
Rating:
Summary: O'NEILL PROVES HE'S A GREAT PLAYWRIGHT
Review: The Iceman Cometh was the first play that I read by O'Neill, and I was not disappointed. Through the magnificent development of characters, O'Neill demonstrates his amazing talent for writing. The entire play is dedicated to a small group of people who inhabit Harry Hope's bar, in which they have no purpose in life other than to talk about their pipe dreams. Even though they live their lives in illusions, it is the one thing that keeps them alive and full of some hope. However, when an old friend by the name of Hickman arrives to celebrate Harry Hope's birthday, their entire worlds are turned upside down. Hickman attempts to convince his buddies to give up their pipe dreams in order to live happy lives without any guilt. Instead of bringing them happiness, Hickman brings death with him. He is not a savior, since O'Neill illustrates that there can be no salvation in a modern universe. This is definitely a play for everyone to read, especially since O'Neill is a born playwright. I also recommend "A Long Day's Journey into Night," by the same author.
Rating:
Summary: pessimism vs genius
Review: There's a tendency, particularly among 20th Century males to confuse pessimism with genius. And then we self-consciously award him a Pulitzer prize or two so the Europeans will think we're as insightful and negative as they are... It seems to me that it doesn't take genius to observe that we kill and eat or we die -- that life necessarily involves pain and suffering. The average 4-year-old can see that. Genius, it seems to me, involves moving past the recognition of suffering to an affirmation of life, a willingness to participate wholeheartedly in spite of it all... not by lying to yourself nor by simply putting a good face on it, but by way of seeing through to the Ground that lies beyond mere suffering and illusion, to the Ground from which all genuine vitality springs. A good Disney cartoon is closer to genius than this. And it's not that I dislike all pessimistic works -- I love Hamlet, for example. So all dreams are pipe-dreams. Yet we must cling to our lies lest we go mad. That position, as far as I'm concerned, is itself madness. True sanity is completely happy. I agree rather with Roald Dahl's James of Giant Peach fame, that all good things start with a dream. I agree with Thoreau that we SHOULD build our castles in the air, and only then can we put the foundations under them. Losing heart is part of the process. It's human and completely forgiveable, but it's not genius.
Rating: 
Summary: HORRIBLE PIECE OF NONSENSE
Review: This may very well be the worst creation of man. Do yourself a favor and buy the new Limp Bizkit album instead.
Rating:
Summary: HORRIBLE PIECE OF NONSENSE
Review: This may very well be the worst creation of man. Do yourself a favor and buy the new Limp Bizkit album instead.
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