Evening star., 1946-10-10

master he lCe NAH 1OIilctll dt
night. A playwright with something
say it, spoke for four thoughtful hou
audience. Mankind is the theme o
years, and the feelings with which
it fills him include bitter rage, pity
and high, sardonic laughter. A
glowing imagination, the particular
gift which has made O'Neill Amer
ict's foremost playwright, is visibly
at work in "The Ice Man Cometh"t
to shorten and vary its four long
acts; to take the accent off its guam
tity and put it where it belongs. on
it's quality. II,
In bringing theater back 70 tfIe
theater, O'Neill disdains the COM
mercial conventions. He writes as
a poet with his eyes fixed on his
soul, or If any one wants to say its
with his back to the boxoffice.
But with the largest advance sale
In many years on Broadway-al-i
ready far into January-there is noi
doubt 1.-THE Ice Man Cometh" al-
ready is a triumph that way, too.
Sharing it with O'Neill are the
Theater Guild, which produces the
drama; Eddie Bowling, who directed
it, and cast delighted to the bot
tom of its aggregate heart to dis
cover that the art of playwriting is
all the art of acting has been need
ing. A dozen times, the running
interval of the play is heightened
while the audience takes over TO-
express its delight in acting such as
is rarely seen.
= n X X X
"Great" is no word to handy about
in a quick judgment of any play, not
even "The Ice Man Cometh." But
1t is safe to say it is the work of a
great writer, genius who dares toI
pass an opinion upon man and a
word magician who never is at loss
for the musical or profane phrase
to make his thought ruthlessly
clear. There is a lot of the latter
speech in the drama at the Martin
Beck, but it cannot fail to ring as
true to the ear of the listener as 1t
did to O'Neill.
The human beings O'Neill collects
in 1.-The Ice Man Cometh'' are as
degraded lot as ever a modern
playwright assembled. They are old
friends of the playwright's tortured
youth, derelicts he knew at Harry
Hopes saloon on the West Side
water front in 1912. They are life's'
hopelessly beaten drunks, tarts and
pimps. They find physical subsist-
ence in Hopes rotgut whisky and
the dessicated free lunch which
makes his place Raines Law hotel.
They are sustained spiritually by
their dreams, a fantastic, mad OPP
timism that makes tomorrow some-
how worth living for.
These shabby, shattered humans
beset by their alcoholic demons are
more than the dirty buns and
frowsy prostitutes the naked eye re-
veals. They are O'Neill's symbols of
what mankind lets itself become.
Those who make up what might be
called his first team, it requires no
skill to count, are composed OF II
blowsy disciples and Mary Magda-
lene. They are waiting in Hopes
backroom for the coming of their
saviour, a travelling salesman named
Hickey who will bring them the
peace of a two-week binge.
Hick comes, as he always does on
Hopes birthday, but its another
kind of peace he brings with him
this time. He, too, had pipe-dream
and Hopes was the place to let it
roar. but he comes this time to re-
port that it has been killed and that
he has found new and higher
peace. Hickey is great salesman
and all the resistance has been dis
solved by the alcohol his wretched
associates have absorbed. One by
one, with the notable exception OF
a philosophic Irishman who has
learned to hate mankind, they be-
come pushovers for Hickey.
He offers them dignity he offers
them souls, indeed, if they will give
up their absurd dreams and the lusts
of their flesh. They must face life
as creatures with souls if they would
have it instead of the living death.
Hickey is a persuasive one and as
his arguments destroy their tomor-
row. Hopes alcoholic Utopia turns
into cage of angry animals.
With their old drugged peace dis
appearing, the group is seized by
terror. Into the clearest of the
cloudy minds in that sieazy room,
that of the Irish philosopher, comes
the thought that Hickey who used
to be the life of those annual parties
is the death 's-headEs ats-this one.
Hickey has become the iceman OF
his own once uproarious jest, and
the iceman is death. -
How to get rid of him is the prob
lem of the IL disciples, the Magalene,
and the lesser figures in the play.
They manage it in fashion that
leads to an ending which could be
called happy in the simplest terms
of the fundamentally simple plot.
But certainly not happy in the plays
allegorical significance which sums
up mans 2,000-year opportunity
under the influence of Christianity.
The most amazing single quality