Denzel Washington, two-time Academy Award winner and Tony Award winner, returns to Broadway in one of the signal roles in the American theatre in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, for 14 weeks only.
Frank Rich of The New York Times raved, "the word 'masterwork' is not invoked lightly. Eugene O'Neill's tragic vision remains undiminished by time. The Iceman Cometh is a ferocious American classic that has lost none of its power to send one shaking into the middle of the night." Beginning March 22, 2018, Denzel Washington, fresh off his extraordinary sell-out runs in both Fences and A Raisin in the Sun, comes back to the Main Stem in "the greatest American play" (New York Magazine) by "the greatest American playwright" (The Washington Post).
Five-time Tony winner George C. Wolfe directs this strictly limited engagement.
"Before Eugene O'Neill, America had entertainment; after him, it had drama." John Lahr, The New Yorker
"Eugene O'Neill did nothing less than re-invent - or rather invent - the American theater." - Sarah Churchwell, The Guardian
"The Iceman Cometh ranks among the theater's finest works. One final salute to a notable drama by a man who writes with the heart and wonder of a poet." - Brooks Atkinson, The New York Times
Yet the cumulative effect of this handsomely decrepit production is bracing. Director George C. Wolfe keeps things moving at a quick clip; not all of the bigger character choices pay off-and some of the actors are hard to hear or understand-but there are performances to savor. (I especially admired Michael Potts as a crapped-out gambler, Bill Irwin as a slick-handed ex-carny and Tammy Blanchard as a hard-nosed streetwalker.) In the end, however, it is Washington's show, and he seizes it with both hands in Hickey's climactic monologue, an aria of eroding self-deception boldly delivered straight to the audience. He takes us into his confidence, even as it crumbles.
The surest way to get as pickled as the self-deceiving regulars at Harry Hope's downtown New York dive bar in The Iceman Cometh would be to take a shot of whiskey every time someone says 'pipe dreams.' Eugene O'Neill was seldom one to go easy on emphatic repetition of his themes, and the playwright's bleak vision of men drowning their deferred plans in cheap booze can be as prolix as it is poetic. George C. Wolfe's revival feels on some levels like it's still cohering, the underlying despair remaining muted for too much of the three-hour-45-minute running time. But it comes together in a powerful final act driven by the searing confessional monologue of Denzel Washington's Hickey.
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