The Iceman Cometh

The Place: Harry Hope's bar, a cheap gin-mill of the five-cent whiskey, last-resort variety situated downtown on the West Side of New York. The Time: Salesman Hickey's birthday celebration, two days during the summer of 1912 -- a time when all tomorrows are forced abruptly to become today; when the delineation between hopes, dreams, and pipe dreams disintegrates; when "self-knowledge" destroys self-respect, compassion -- and life. One of the last of Eugene O'Neill's plays, The Iceman Cometh stands today with Long Day's Journey into Night and A Moon for the Misbegotten as the supreme expression of his dramatic genius.