num_pages: 196
description: "Spellbinding--soaring theater--. For reasons that remain mysterious, it seems especially moving today."-- The New York TimesEugene O'Neill mined the tragedies of his own life for this depiction of a seedy, skid row saloon in 1912, peopled by society's failures: worn-out anarchists, failed con artists, drifters, whores, pimps, and informers. The pipe-dreaming drunks of Harry Hope's bar numb themselves with rotgut gin and make grandiose plans, while waiting for the annual appearance of the big-spending, fast-talking salesman, Hickey. But this year's visit fails to bring the expected good times, as a changed Hickey tries to rouse the barflies from their soothing stupor with a proselytizing message of salvation through self-knowledge.                              Considered by many to be the Nobel Prize-winning playwright's finest work, The Iceman Cometh exposes the human need for illusion as an antidote to despair. The recent gripping, critically acclaimed Broadway production, starring Kevin Spacey, has highlighted anew the subversive genius of O'Neill's play.
language: English
title: The Iceman Cometh
titlecomplete: The Iceman Cometh
characters: Willie Oban, Hugo Kalmar, Chuck Morello, Harry Hope, Cecil Lewis (The Captain), Larry Slade, Piet Wetjoen (The General), Moran, Margie, Joe Mott, Don Parritt, Rocky Pioggi, Pat McGloin, Ed Mosher, Pearl, Theodore Hickman (Hickey), James Cameron (Jimmy Tomorrow), Cora, Lieb
genres: Fiction, Plays, 20th Century, Theatre, Classics, The United States Of America, Drama, Nobel Prize, American, Literature
ratings_count: 9813
places: Greenwich Village, New York City, New York
awards: awardedAt: -725817600000
name: New York Drama Critics' Circle Award
category: Best American Play
publisher: Vintage