The Iceman Cometh

"We live and die, in the spirit, in solitude, and the true strength of Iceman is its intense dramatic exemplification of that somber reality. . . . Life, in Iceman, is what it is in Schopenhauer: illusion."--from the foreword by Harold Bloom

The Iceman Cometh focuses on a group of alcoholics and misfits who endlessly discuss but never act on their dreams, and Hickey, the traveling salesman determined to strip them of their pipe dreams. Eugene O'Neill--the first American playwright to win the Nobel Prize in literature--completed Iceman in 1939, but he delayed production until after the war, when it enjoyed a long run of performances in 1946 after receiving mixed reviews. Three years after O'Neill's death, Jason Robards starred in a Broadway revival that brought new critical attention to O'Neill's darkest and most nihilistic play. Since then, The Iceman Cometh has gained enormously in stature; many critics now recognize it as one of the greatest plays in American drama.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 08/01/2006
ISBN: 9780300117431
Pages: 219
Weight: 0.41lbs
Size: 7.84h x 5.02w x 0.65d

Review Citations: Univ PR Books for Public Libry 01/01/2007 pg. 1 - Strongly Recommended