This is an entirely different production from the Spacey show in 1999; the latter I now see as kind of a "Cliff's Notes" version of the play. Spacey cut an hour and 10 minutes from it I'm guessing to better showcase the role of Hickey (his part); the part of the bartender for example (played by Tony Danza in 1999) is a much larger role than that production would have you believe. Nathan Lane is closer to what O'Neill envisioned and is more period; Spacey was more oily and contemporary. Nathan did a solid job and really drove the play (his monologue in Act IV is particularly searing as he delivers it red-faced almost like a depressed steam engine), but Hickey is not on stage as much in the full version as he was in Spacey's version, so Nathan Lane's absence is felt palpably; although the supporting cast is excellent, they are all dissipated drunks, so the play needs the dynamism of a Nathan Lane or Kevin Spacey to spark it life. Hickey is figuratively a crash cart to these derelicts and without him they are in a quasi-embalmed state of despondency. Some of the cuts in 1999 were, frankly, needed, and for that reason I think Spacey's version has merit, but the Goodman Theater production has more integrity and is the better production for the ages.
1
I hate to be a lonely dissenting voice, but I thought the self conscious acting, Tableau staging and moody lighting robbed the play of the gritty reality that supports its metaphors. The director underscored the metaphor rather than letting make its own commentary in a context of realism. There was no testosterone -- no fear of real violence that might break out. The characters were more like types, did not seem like real people, and thus failed to interest us in their stories. The Brechtian approach to self conscious performance in this production failed O'Neill's play.
5
Saw it Feb.24 and it's a night to remember, but thrown slightly by Mr. Lane's resemblance physically (and thus in personality) to Jackie Gleason.
1
Yes, I thought that too, and Gleason would have been better.
1
I've often thought Dennehy incredibly under-appreciated for his talent. It's great to see he's still in the game and as strong as ever.
3
Take a look at the scene excerpt. Why are these guys talking so fast, pressing so hard? Why are their lines jammed together like an audio tape at 1.5X? Is this actually 2015? It's enough to make one yearn for a new kind of theater. Maybe Iceman is impossible theater to pull off. Check out some of the videos of old productions on youtube. Lee Marvin, Jason Robarts, Christopher Plummer, all doing a wonderful job of reading lines. Where's the real Hickey?
And here's an amazing review of the original production http://www.eoneill.com/artifacts/reviews/ic1_atlantic.htm
And here's an amazing review of the original production http://www.eoneill.com/artifacts/reviews/ic1_atlantic.htm
3
Thank you for that link to the review in The Atlantic in 1946. It really helped me to appreciate the play.
Eric Bentley explains what O'Neil learned from Ibsen and how the play works. It's the best review I've ever read. According to his Wikipedia profile, he is still alive at 98 and lives here in NYC.
Eric Bentley explains what O'Neil learned from Ibsen and how the play works. It's the best review I've ever read. According to his Wikipedia profile, he is still alive at 98 and lives here in NYC.
I too saw this production at its place of origin, the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. I agree Dennehy is great, as always in O'Neill. But after seeing Kevin Spacey play Hickey in NYC in 1999 and watch Robards do it on film, I found Nathan Lane unwatchable in the role. If you can stand that, you can watch the greatest O'Neill actor of our generation, Dennehy, bring fresh attention to the character of Slade.
3
Compellingly observant review with only one nitpick. I don't see the characters' ships as having sunk for they would truly be dead but instead capsized with them managing to stay alive with a little pocket of air (pipe dreams) trapped in a rusting upside down hold.
3
Be great if they can film this so the hoi polloi can see it. I live in northern westchester and have a terrible job schedule.
It's been filmed. In the "70"s with Lee Marvin as Hickey, Frderick March tending bar, Robert Ryan, Bradford Dillman and Jeff Bridges; John Frankenheimer, directing. AFAIK the film is in a vault. A real masterpiece.
The only suggestions I would make about this superb, perceptive review is that we need to peel the O'Neill onion a bit deeper to see that Hickey, as the bridegroom (as in "the bridegroom cometh") is not a symbol of hopelessness just because he brings death. True, he turns wine into water so the drinks temporarily lose their power -- but just long enough for the community members of Hope's to face themselves. As a self-aware reformed drunk, himself, writing during the years that AA was being launched by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob, Gene knew that this was the vital first step to recovery, sanity and hope. And although disappointment and temporary zombie-like depression at losing their delusions is etched on "their weary faces," the patrons recover quickly when Hickey is arrested. Their new-found enthusiasm -- the highest in this production -- is not just because they can justify escaping Hickey's tough-love program, but primarily because they can testify to brother Hickey's "insanity" and save their beloved friend from "the chair." This is more like the brotherhood we hear about in Schiller's "Ode to Joy" during Beethoven's ninth, than the "corrosive pessimism" Mr. Isherwood has found before "scraping a little deeper," as we must, in order to find the play's true "mirror" -- the mirror that shows why Hickey is at peace with death and doesn't fear "the chair."
4
This was an excellent ensemble performance. But O'Neill is challenging even for an actor as experienced as Mr. Lane. The pedantic Hickey needed to shatter in his final Evelyn monologue, at the end of 4hrs: 30 mins, there was little time left to explore the nuance there.
For those fearful, this ensemble casts a spell so subtle, time becomes secondary to the experience. Mr. Dennehy is as invisible and hauntingly hopeless as O'Neill's promise of tomorrow for these characters. So glad we had the opportunity to see O'Neill done well.
For those fearful, this ensemble casts a spell so subtle, time becomes secondary to the experience. Mr. Dennehy is as invisible and hauntingly hopeless as O'Neill's promise of tomorrow for these characters. So glad we had the opportunity to see O'Neill done well.
2
Re: "The Iceman Cometh," Revived, With Nathan Lane and Brian Dennehy,
reviewed by Charles Isherwood, Feb. 12, 2015.
"Can a drama this corrosively pessimistic give pleasure?" asks Charles Isherwood about Eugene O'Neill's masterpiece, "The Iceman Cometh."
I will answer Isherwood's question with a resounding yes, with a little
help from another great writer: Franz Kafka. who once said that a
work of art should be like an ax that falls upon the frozen world inside us, or
words to that effect. "The Iceman Cometh" does that. It shatters all our fond illusions about our lives with blistering effect, and forces us to ask: What do we do with all the nothingness that surrounds us? Start anew, but without
pipedreams, life tells us; strive to find your own meaning, life counsels us.
A work of art that embodies a truth no matter how painful brings us pleasure, the pleasure of recognition.
But such works come our way once in a rare while: "The Iceman Cometh" is
one such.
Kudos to Nathan Lane, Brian Dennehy, and Robert Falls for reviving
a classic of world drama yet again?
How about a DVD of the production for the benefit of those unable to travel to
New York to see the current production?
reviewed by Charles Isherwood, Feb. 12, 2015.
"Can a drama this corrosively pessimistic give pleasure?" asks Charles Isherwood about Eugene O'Neill's masterpiece, "The Iceman Cometh."
I will answer Isherwood's question with a resounding yes, with a little
help from another great writer: Franz Kafka. who once said that a
work of art should be like an ax that falls upon the frozen world inside us, or
words to that effect. "The Iceman Cometh" does that. It shatters all our fond illusions about our lives with blistering effect, and forces us to ask: What do we do with all the nothingness that surrounds us? Start anew, but without
pipedreams, life tells us; strive to find your own meaning, life counsels us.
A work of art that embodies a truth no matter how painful brings us pleasure, the pleasure of recognition.
But such works come our way once in a rare while: "The Iceman Cometh" is
one such.
Kudos to Nathan Lane, Brian Dennehy, and Robert Falls for reviving
a classic of world drama yet again?
How about a DVD of the production for the benefit of those unable to travel to
New York to see the current production?
4
While I agree with the general tenor of the review, I think it understates the wonderful ensemble acting. Like the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in its heyday, the Goodman apparently knows how to get great work out of good actors working together. I also wish Isherwood had mentioned the set design, which, along with the lighting, contributed brilliantly to the success of the production. For those who will not get to see the play, imagine the same setting viewed from four different angles in each of the four acts. A tour de force.
And for those who criticize Nathan Lane without having seen this performance, well, you should give yourselves a chance to reevaluate him.
And for those who criticize Nathan Lane without having seen this performance, well, you should give yourselves a chance to reevaluate him.
"Returned to their customary positions at the scarred tables of Kevin Depinet’s effectively spare set..."
I take that as a mention of the set design...
I take that as a mention of the set design...
Jack Lemmon did it well in "The China Syndrome" ( movie 1979) ie trying to express the inexpressible. O'Neill fails with his pen and whoever was his housekeeper left out a scolding. To be up to date Robert de Niro might have been given a go at Hickey. It is a pity to see such failure of stagecraft elevated to praise in the importance that a nation should have its cultural prestige.
God I love Nathan Lane.
6
"Iceman" is a great play for sure. But for some strange reason, O'Neill's debt to Maxim Gorky's "The Lower Depths" is rarely mentioned. Not only the plot, but some of the characters as well, are taken straight from Gorky's original. Kurosawa's film version is also a masterpiece, but closer to its model. Unlike O'Neill, Kurosawa made no attempt to hide his source. I'm wondering if O'Neill ever did acknowledge it. Surely someone would have noticed the striking similarities when it premiered.
Not to take anything away from what O'Neill made out of Gorky's story, one of his most powerful -- and original -- works.
Not to take anything away from what O'Neill made out of Gorky's story, one of his most powerful -- and original -- works.
5
If the purpose of drama is to "hold a mirror up to life," few writers do it better than Eugene O'Neill and it is unlikely that any director of his plays has ever done it better than Robert Falls in the current production of "The Iceman Cometh" at BAM. Nor has any actor -- including the great Jason Robards -- surpassed the performance of Nathan Lane as Hickey. It is simply the best acting I have seen in my sixty years attending plays in New York.
17
Is there no play that won't cast Nathan Lane? In another 20 years Broadway will be called Laneway.
5
He's often cast in shows because he's terrific and talented actor and he's good at what he does. He also to put it bluntly puts arses in seats. Have seen him in several productions and he's always terrific. Saw him in Godot several years ago, fantastic.
Don't care for Mr. Lane I suggest you don't purchase a ticket in any show in which he appears.
Don't care for Mr. Lane I suggest you don't purchase a ticket in any show in which he appears.
4
I stopped doing that long ago. I saw him in Laughter On the 23rd Floor and then again in The Producers. Extremely talented, but maddeningly selfish on stage.
2
Lane's acting has grown considerably since The Producers; his work here is exemplary.
I saw this in Chicago several years ago and thought that Nathan Lane's usual schtick came through a little too strongly. It would be interesting to revisit it and see whether he has, over the years, evolved from "his usual thing" to something a little more honest.
5
Yes, pour a little whiskey. This play is just plain boring!
1
It is for their opportunities to see theatre such as this that I envy New Yorkers. It has long been on my bucket list to see Philip Seymour Hoffman and Brian Dennehy in anything on stage there. Too late now for Mr. Hoffman; I'd trade a week in my quiet lakeside home overlooking Mt. McKinley in Alaska to walk for one night on the bustling, noisy, crazy, crowded streets of Manhattan on my way to see this show.
31
It's actually in Brooklyn, so it would be a bit of a walk for you. But it would be a great walk, for sure. I'm going to see it tonight and the fact that I can is indeed one of the reasons I love living here.
5
So what do I know? I'm 3300+ miles away from NYC - and in Talkeetna I'm 50 miles from the nearest traffic light . . .
3
....streets of Fort Greene,, Brooklyn.....
Having seen the play in Chicago, it is better than the pompous review. You do not have to be an intellectual to enjoy it. The almost 5 hours will quickly pass.
The hours pass more slowly if your feet are sore, you're tired from travel, and you cannot find a way to stretch your legs between intermissions. However even with burning feet and struggling to stay alert, I really found the play, the ensemble, the sets and lighting and the theatre itself as an event I will remember for a very long time. Dennehy was a perfect opposite in his grounded embrace of the inevitable to Lane's frenetic and touchingly evangelical delivery. "Be careful of those prophets you follow," said an acquaintance of the message of the play - which as one interpretation of the subtext of the play really makes sense, and makes it timeless. Very glad I had the opportunity to take it all in.
Bravo Chicago actors. Theater at its best.
5
Well-written review of a well-written great play. Wish I could see it.
10
"..the human will being what it is, even unendurable life can be endured."
when godot finally arrives, he has nothing to offer, nothing we want to hear. so we row on, boats against the current.
when godot finally arrives, he has nothing to offer, nothing we want to hear. so we row on, boats against the current.
7
Everyone knows comedy is hard and not always funny. That's why so many commedians are so good at doing drama. What an amazing cast. Bravo!
2
I find this review at total odds with my experience of the show on February 5th. The show is a timepiece that has little that is news to deliver and appears very heavy handed in its approach to subject of self delusion: "pipe dreams" as is beat into our heads over and over again in this play. It might have been news at a time when people ideal reactions to adversity was more Pollyannish, but I think that while today we are not immune to self-delusions, we are more adept at spotting them, if not in ourselves, then in others.
The performances while excellent in most cases, did not mesh. While we could assume these characters led isolated lives, their reactions and responses to each other were disproportionate. Outburst and hysteria were delivered by characters with volume and gestures out of proportion with the preceding stimulus.
The characters as presented were often caricatures.This made me feel their responses where too drastic given their cartoon troubles. In short, the message was dead serious, but the way people's lives were inpacted was not reaaly that interesting, or in fact tragic. They were wasted lives not tragic lives.
The performances while excellent in most cases, did not mesh. While we could assume these characters led isolated lives, their reactions and responses to each other were disproportionate. Outburst and hysteria were delivered by characters with volume and gestures out of proportion with the preceding stimulus.
The characters as presented were often caricatures.This made me feel their responses where too drastic given their cartoon troubles. In short, the message was dead serious, but the way people's lives were inpacted was not reaaly that interesting, or in fact tragic. They were wasted lives not tragic lives.
3
"I think that while today we are not immune to self-delusions, we are more adept at spotting them, of not in ourselves, then in others."
I'll have what you're having.
I'll have what you're having.
5
I was at the same performance; and tend to agree about the not-meshed quality, but much had to do with the choices on stage. The exaggerated noo yawk accents of the "tarts" edged them especially towards caricature - Harry Hope, Larry Slade and Don Parritt are fully drawn individuals. Much of the stage action seems to be taken directly from the Jason Robards tv version. As for Nathan Lane's Hickey, he owns the stage from the moment he walks on, but doesn't really give any indications justifying Larry's forebodings, and so his monologue at the end, rootless, was not all that convincing. I was glad I'd gone to see it, but was not blown away.
Relax, and forget what you've learnt about 20th-century acting methods; otherwise, you miss the point. This piece is a morality play of a very medieval stripe. In other words, caricature constitutes its very essence, with character taking rather a back seat to message. And if you find that message anachronistic, may I remind you that the classic topos of "pipe dreams" here in O'Neill was more recently reincarnated in Sam Mendes' American Beauty. It is a mantra known to anyone in our self-help society, as axiomatic as the first step of awareness: "Never underestimate the power of denial."
1
I'd pay to see Nathan Lane read the phone book.
5
Alas, too many producers are counting on that.
6
I might not see the play, but I had the pleasure of reading this beautiful review.
10
Nasal and whiny Mr. Lane as always.
3
We are fortunate indeed to have so many masters at work in the acting crafts.......
2
After seeing this performance Thursday night, all I can say is "spot on Mr. Isherwood," and if there are any tickets to be had, I urge every theater devotee to head to Brooklyn. You won't regret the trip! And after such an emotionally charged night, you won't feel much like sleeping it off either.
5
Sounds like campy fun, just what we need to bright up the gloomy winter.
1
Just attended the play Thursday night and I agree with all Mr. Isherwood's various praises of the cast. Evidently the audience agreed too, rising after the last curtain to a sustained two (or three?) minute standing ovation.
3
Don't attend the theater much, do you? Standing ovations are ubiquitous and thoroughly unrelated to the quality of the production. (In fact, I sometimes wonder if there isn't an inverse relationship.)
9
You are right, but the standing ovation on February 11 was of a totally different character. In describing the production to a friend later that night, I called it a "genuine" standing ovation.
1
Not everywhere. It has become a peculiarly American phenomenon to give an over-the-top, uncritical standing ovation during a too-brief curtain call rather than have both sides of the footlights celebrate in the communal experience that great theatre can be. In most major European theaters, curtain calls go on for many, many minutes with actual "calls" to the stage, but seldom do they involve an audience standing, a self-important gesture that (as you indicate) is not correlated with the quality of a performance on these shores. Rather, here they indicate (1) the desire of the audience to hightail it out of the theatre so as not to waste its precious time actually being grateful for the work of artists ... after all, "I paid good money and they are just doing their job"; and (2) a fearful sense that "since I paid so much money, the performance had to have been the best that if could be; therefore, it is deserving of a standing ovation." Thoughtless standing ovations are indicative of a self-serving audience, but productions that simply go through the motions, with boilerplate curtain calls that do not actually respond to the level of enthusiasm of each night's audience, are to blame for the decline of the calls' important theatrical function: both actors and audience are deprived.
4
Always thought "Iceman Cometh" could have used a some editing.
7
The play title The Iceman Cometh was an inside joke between Eugene and his brother Robert. Before refrigerators came into existence people relied on iceboxes to preserve their food. Often times the ice was a home delivery. The inside joke between the two was - has the ice man come yet.
3
There's no greater American play than Iceman. The vast majority of our greatest writers have been pitch-black pessimists: Melville, Twain (behind the mask), Henry James, Wharton, Dreiser, Crane, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, Nabokov, and O'Neill. In a country as given to dishonest denial and fake "optimism" as ours, thank God for what Melville saw in Hawthorne and O'Neill had on stage more than any American playwright: "the power of blackness," meaning the power of ripping away the fantasies and lies Americans are so good at, to reveal the hopeless "Iceman" at the core of all things human.
22
Some good insights, Mr. White, but the "Iceman" is not hopeless in its meaning or in its symbolism: Like almost every other aspect of the play the term "iceman" represents two conflicting extremes. Just as Harry Hope's feelings about his wife and Don Parrit's feelings about his mother encompass the conflict between love and hate, iceman encompasses the conflict between death and life, the latter in the joke from which the play's title is drawn, wherein the iceman is "breathing hard" at the pinnacle of passion, conception and new life.
O'Neill said "Iceman" is the first of a trilogy (completed with "Long Day's Journey" and "Moon for the Misbegotten"). In "Journey" he has Edmond Tyrone flesh out (in Act IV) what he meant in "Iceman" by the moment of reality Hickey forced the denizens of Hope's saloon to face and by the peace Hickey felt he himself had finally found:
“… for a moment I lost myself--actually lost my life. I was set fee!.... I belonged without, past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself! To God if you want to put it that way. …. Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see--and seeing the secret, are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again….”
O'Neill said "Iceman" is the first of a trilogy (completed with "Long Day's Journey" and "Moon for the Misbegotten"). In "Journey" he has Edmond Tyrone flesh out (in Act IV) what he meant in "Iceman" by the moment of reality Hickey forced the denizens of Hope's saloon to face and by the peace Hickey felt he himself had finally found:
“… for a moment I lost myself--actually lost my life. I was set fee!.... I belonged without, past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself! To God if you want to put it that way. …. Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see--and seeing the secret, are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again….”
2
Gotta say it--LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT is greater than ICEMAN. O'Neill managed to pack the world into that family drama.
2
Totally agree with your views on the cultural norm in this country. I think those attitudes exacerbate some of the intractable problems that we have in this country, whether it be income inequality or racial relations.