Review Roundup: THE ICEMAN COMETH Opens at BAM

BAM and Scott Rudin present the Goodman Theatre's renowned revival of Eugene O'Neill's THE ICEMAN COMETH now through March 15. The production opens tonight, February 12, 2015.

Directed by longtime Goodman Artistic Director Robert Falls and featuring Tony Award-winning stage and screen actors Nathan Lane as Theordore "Hickey" Hickman and Brian Dennehy as Larry Slade, the production, including its original Chicago cast, features set design by Kevin Depinet, inspired by a set design by John Conklin, lighting design by Nathash Katz and costume design by Merrily Murray-Walsh.

THE ICEMAN COMETH is Eugene O'Neill's trenchant portrait of hope and disillusionment. At Harry Hope's saloon, the biannual visit of charismatic traveling salesman Hickey (Lane) is cause for celebration. But when a newly sober Hickey arrives, his renewed outlook on life threatens to upend the lives of his old friends, leading to a series of devastatingly comic and heartbreaking events.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Charles Isherwood, The New York Times: Mr. Falls's magisterial staging of O'Neill's harrowing drama, one of his very greatest, floored me when I first saw it at the Goodman Theater almost three years ago. Once again, at the conclusion of this blistering production, currently at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, I had to scrape myself up from my seat, with my innards churning. As enacted by a cast that is not likely to be bettered this season...O'Neill's symphonic ode to the lies we tell ourselves to survive sustains an enthralling dramatic intensity for pretty much all of its famously long running time...I should begin with a lusty bravo for Nathan Lane, who climbs the mighty Everest of the play's most challenging role, the salesman Hickey who harbors a grim secret, with a restless energy that never fails to impress...And yet Mr. Lane, whose performance I still feel could scrape a little deeper into the scorched soul of Hickey, is not really the occasion here. He is surrounded by cast members, including Brian Dennehy, as Hickey's foremost existential foe, Larry Slade, who collectively forge transfixing light from the dim depths of their characters.

Linda Winer, Newsday: Hours do not fly by in this revival of "The Iceman Cometh." Not for a minute. Instead, in director Robert Falls' devastating production starring Nathan Lane and Brian Dennehy, the hours -- nearly five of them -- burrow and dig. They pick and wear us down and grip with the cumulative thrill of Eugene O'Neill's unrelenting excavation of the "pipe dreams" that cling to the haunted losers at Harry Hope's saloon...But the stories they-and we-are waiting to hear again will come from Hickey, the life-of-the-party traveling salesman played by Lane in a performance that will expunge any misconception of him as exclusively a musical-comedy star...Lane is entirely his own Hickey...Dennehy, his eyes like charcoal holes, his big head sunk in his gaunt, square shoulders, is the center of everything as Larry, the deceptively detached "fool-osopher."

Elysa Gardner, USA Today: Falls and his superb company do not flinch from that bleakness, and they manage to draw us in and sustain our morbid fascination and, ultimately, our empathy...Falls took the bold move of casting Nathan Lane, who has the requisite charisma but is, of course, better known for his comic prowess. Lane has played the sad clown before, though, quite deftly; and he brings a heavier, wearier quality that suits this staging. The actor may not be as convincing as a mass hypnotist who brings misery and, perhaps, catharsis to his followers; but the naked desperation he reveals, in layers, may make you consider Hickey's own suffering and denial afresh. Lane also has a fine foil in Brian Dennehy, cast as Larry Slade...here, hunched and subdued, the 76-year-old actor embodies the frailty and disgust of a man who has given up on life but is afraid, more than he'll admit, of death. Even during his silent passages, you can't stop watching him, watching Hickey and the rest.

Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Post: There's no getting around it: "The Iceman Cometh" is hard to take. The show rambles on for close to five hours, and is packed with so much repetitive dialogue that you may feel like renaming it "The Iceman Boreth." Sometimes you dream of a more radical staging, as when the Wooster Group had a woman in blackface play the title role of O'Neill's "The Emperor Jones." Still, this production is as good as a straightforward production gets...Director Robert Falls' superb cast is led by Lane, hitting the sweet spot between pretend perkiness and self-loathing, and Dennehy, who seems to have completed his transformation into a block of granite. Thanks to both stars and the ensemble, at least you're looking at the stage instead of your watch.

Matt Windman, am New York: Get your caffeine and energy bars ready. Brooklyn Academy of Music has brought in a solid revival of Eugene O'Neill's five-hour, four-act barroom drama "The Iceman Cometh," which originated at Chicago's Goodman Theatre three years ago, and is headlined by Nathan Lane and Brian Dennehy...Lane, bursting with his usual gust of personality, was an inspired casting choice for Hickey, who is supposed to light up the room. In a strange way, his performance could be considered a five-hour apology for taking part in the dismal musical "The Addams Family," as if to prove that he can do more than silly musicals...Dennehy, one of the country's foremost interpreters of O'Neill, is fine in the far less exciting role of Larry, who is essentially a stand-in for O'Neill. Also in the cast is John Douglas Thompson, one of New York's best classical actors.

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