The Iceman Cometh (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780300117431)

Eugene O'Neill's darkest and most nihilistic play, with a foreword by Harold Bloom

"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."--Harold Bloom, from the Introduction

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.

Author: Eugene O'Neill
ISBN-10: 0300117434
ISBN-13: 9780300117431
Publisher: Yale University Press
Language: English
Published: 08/01/2006
Pages: 240
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.48lbs
Size: 7.84h x 5.02w x 0.65d

Review Citation(s):
Univ PR Books for Public Libry 01/01/2007 pg. 1 - Strongly Recommended