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ejreadswords 's review for:
The Iceman Cometh
by Eugene O'Neill
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“I’ve had hell inside me. I can spot it in others.”
Okay. Wow. This is freakin’ brilliant. So heartbreaking. Pipe dreams, who needs ‘em?
…right?
“It’s worse if you kill someone and they have to go on living. I’d be glad of the Chair! It’d wipe it out! It’d square me with myself.”
As a read, I think I enjoyed this or was moved more than I was with Long Day’s Journey Into Night, which I think perhaps is the minority opinion? But these two works are some of O’Neill’s masterpieces. I won’t protest the idea that WATCHING or even performing in Long Day’s Journey Into Night is more affecting than Iceman Cometh. But I did in fact LOVE immensely both plays.
The play’s biggest point that it makes is that we need that reason, that hope, that pipe dream, to genuinely keep going. Hickey is all talk when he tells the regulars at the bar to give up their pipe dreams and go ahead and DO what they keep saying they’ll do ‘tomorrow’ or ‘when the time’s right.’ I’ll admit, some of Hickey’s earlier points I did agree with in certain contexts.
I can even speak for myself, if I never applied to acting school when I did, I don’t think I ever would’ve. Perhaps since late 2019 or early 2020, I was saying, “when the TD Ameritrade and Schwab integration completes, I’m gonna do something! I’m gonna go back to school, I’ll get a new job, whatever.” Now, antithetical to what happens to the doomed characters in this play, I did DO THE THING and I feel so much happier.
“A stew bum is a stew bum and yuh can’t change him.”
This play is in conversation with Kierkegaard’s musing and philosophy (which I frequently cite since it’s so important and is my MO): “happiness is in desire; so long as there is desire, there is hope, and there is potential for said happiness. Even if happiness doesn’t exist in the current moment.” So long as you’re hoping for something, you’re looking forward to something, you know that what you’re enduring is in service for something bigger, or something outside of yourself — you can keep going!
And Hickey, being all talk, and trying to convince himself the most of all (unsuccessfully), tells everyone, and I'm paraphrasing now, “give up! Accept who you are and you’ll be liberated.”
A secondary interpretation of everything happening… don’t drink! This is as much of an anti-drinking PSA as anything; but, to which I can also contend: “the social drinker will live longer than the friendless, straight-edge individual.” Because Hickey, sober as can be throughout the play, is the play’s biggest firecracker.
Some great characters and great threads. Perhaps one too many characters in this script, which is why more contemporary adaptations remove one or two characters completely. The play truly begins when Hickey shows up initially, but it takes more than 40-50 pages for that to happen.
There are some incredible, heartbreaking, and tragic monologues here. I love these characters and what they have to say. That final sequence? There’s no other way this play could’ve honestly ended, and it’s perfect, and it’s hellish, and it’s purgatory. So cynical, but so real.
Okay. Wow. This is freakin’ brilliant. So heartbreaking. Pipe dreams, who needs ‘em?
…right?
“It’s worse if you kill someone and they have to go on living. I’d be glad of the Chair! It’d wipe it out! It’d square me with myself.”
As a read, I think I enjoyed this or was moved more than I was with Long Day’s Journey Into Night, which I think perhaps is the minority opinion? But these two works are some of O’Neill’s masterpieces. I won’t protest the idea that WATCHING or even performing in Long Day’s Journey Into Night is more affecting than Iceman Cometh. But I did in fact LOVE immensely both plays.
The play’s biggest point that it makes is that we need that reason, that hope, that pipe dream, to genuinely keep going. Hickey is all talk when he tells the regulars at the bar to give up their pipe dreams and go ahead and DO what they keep saying they’ll do ‘tomorrow’ or ‘when the time’s right.’ I’ll admit, some of Hickey’s earlier points I did agree with in certain contexts.
I can even speak for myself, if I never applied to acting school when I did, I don’t think I ever would’ve. Perhaps since late 2019 or early 2020, I was saying, “when the TD Ameritrade and Schwab integration completes, I’m gonna do something! I’m gonna go back to school, I’ll get a new job, whatever.” Now, antithetical to what happens to the doomed characters in this play, I did DO THE THING and I feel so much happier.
“A stew bum is a stew bum and yuh can’t change him.”
This play is in conversation with Kierkegaard’s musing and philosophy (which I frequently cite since it’s so important and is my MO): “happiness is in desire; so long as there is desire, there is hope, and there is potential for said happiness. Even if happiness doesn’t exist in the current moment.” So long as you’re hoping for something, you’re looking forward to something, you know that what you’re enduring is in service for something bigger, or something outside of yourself — you can keep going!
And Hickey, being all talk, and trying to convince himself the most of all (unsuccessfully), tells everyone, and I'm paraphrasing now, “give up! Accept who you are and you’ll be liberated.”
A secondary interpretation of everything happening… don’t drink! This is as much of an anti-drinking PSA as anything; but, to which I can also contend: “the social drinker will live longer than the friendless, straight-edge individual.” Because Hickey, sober as can be throughout the play, is the play’s biggest firecracker.
Some great characters and great threads. Perhaps one too many characters in this script, which is why more contemporary adaptations remove one or two characters completely. The play truly begins when Hickey shows up initially, but it takes more than 40-50 pages for that to happen.
There are some incredible, heartbreaking, and tragic monologues here. I love these characters and what they have to say. That final sequence? There’s no other way this play could’ve honestly ended, and it’s perfect, and it’s hellish, and it’s purgatory. So cynical, but so real.