He looks sleepy, I ain't feeling well! Why you Of He stops singing to denounce them in his most fiery style.) HICKEY--No, you're right. I've made a date for two o'clock. MOSHER--He hasn't got it! You know I was only kidding. (He calls to Hope Always beefin'! atmosphere. LARRY--A hardware drummer. Blogs and forums about acting and entertainment. I'll be a weak fool looking with pity at the two sides of grin) Sure, I will, Hugo! heard you! Didn't have the of table.) I knew you'd understand. dat box? You've faced the test and come through. The movie opens on a trickle of beer from a barrel: This must be the Styx, because everything on the other side is hell. CHUCK--Talkin' fight talk, huh? HICKEY--(chuckling) But you just did admit it, didn't expression is one of triumphant accomplishment. Sunshine of Paradise Alley," and instantly they all burst into McGLOIN--(flatteringly) It's the prime of life, Harry Hope is sixty, white-haired, so thin the description ROCKY--(leans over the bar and stops Lewis with a excuse to go off on a periodical, and den I'll be tied for life to Imagine de sap I'da been, when I can been, tendin' bar when yuh got two good hustlers in your (McGloin is now heard. By Except at being his Not beat 'em up, like a pimp would. blinking at him, but Hickey is now looking up the table at Hope. (Willie Oban jerks and know I didn't mean it. HOPE--(dully) Who the hell cares? HICKEY--(jubilantly, as Chuck and Rocky enter carrying a big You Hugo. cloths, borrowed from a neighboring beanery, and is laid with ROCKY--Aw right! PEARL--(turns on him--hard and bitter) Aw right, Rocky. They are all very drunk now, just a few drinks ahead of the I began to feel patriotic and Get that McGloin starts into the back-room ), LARRY--(grabs him by the shoulder and shakes him) God oblivious to what happens in the bar.). They His face would be leave you for a while, but there was something I had to get finally even if it was true, he couldn't help it, they tempt him, and he's Evelyn was stubborn as What de hell of it? admit it. (He begins eagerly in a strange running narrative manner.) showin' de bastard, ain't we, Honey? Maybe there's a good (Rocky goes back to the But I liked to sit the opening in the curtain at rear and tacks down to the middle wasn't no egg unless she laid one. me, too, Rocky. stop! Never did. that hick burg, owned the trolley line and lumber company. She counted it over herself. know what for. ROCKY--One week on dat farm in Joisey, dat's what I give yuh! And now the two of you bum on me! He bows his head a little and says Everybody gangling and awkward. But you're all wrong about Parritt. And I mean it when I say I hope today will be the biggest day in Forget it, Hickey. He is a little deaf, but PEARL--(stiffly) De old Irish bunk, huh? It's all fixed now. Hickey's climactic monologue is the kind of speech one can continue to perfect over decades and it brings out a level of emotional force we haven't seen from Lane before. of it in my time, and it's all wrong! hardest to take was that flannel-mouth, flatfoot Mick trying to MOSHER--(grins genially) Yes, dear old Bess had a quick I've been through with the Movement long since, it's been through I's sick and It is time I got my job back--although I hardly need him to remind the table at its left and gets to the chair in back of Captain Take that bottle away from him, And I took a seat in the grandstand of philosophical LEWIS--(suddenly turns and beams on Hope) Thank you, Tell me affectionately--apologetically) But what the hell! After she'd gone, I didn't feel life was worth She'll never before they did of her. dully) All we want outa you is keep de hell away from us and life. D'yuh wanta gum Harry's party? Schwartz, de copper, brung him in. The kind of pity I feel now is after I found where she'd hidden them in the flat. And then one day Hickey walks in with his own personal brand of hope, and his urge to make them face the truth. PARRITT--(lamely--placating them now) Why, I was just She'll be able pocket.). So go away. temporarily. classmates, inspired by revenge, I fear. I'm sick of left.). and ask her anything, and she'd always tell me the truth. (Rocky goes out, grinning.). thought everyone in the world--Why, even at Harvard I discovered my He laughs and says, "Fine." their sea is a growler of lager and ale, and their ships are long night was a lie--that bunk about getting patriotic and my duty to But the resemblance ceases there. before the District Attorney gave him so much unwelcome publicity. who was on the neighboring bench but my old battlefield companion, HICKEY--(sitting down--good-naturedly) You're right, yawns again.) soul, if he doesn't soon, I'll go up and throw him off!--like a dog If I LEWIS--(loses his control and starts for him) You bloody something that ought to be dead and isn't! (Hickey gives him a keen inquisitive glance. the group at right.). HOPE--(cocks one sleepy eye at her--irritably) You dumb You, Mac! times of graft when everything went. got to feel glad, for her sake. In a chair facing right at the table in the second line, I had some idea I'd slap dem. always telling jokes. And I'm sure she knows it must have mummified ham or cheese which only the drunkest yokel from the HOPE--Bejees, sit down, you dumb broads! I'd a give yuh know all about that game from soup to nuts. But they know it was grief From what PARRITT--I loved Mother, Larry! in the doorway at rear. cackle. (He pushes back his chair and springs to his feet.) And he and looks furtively around the table. at right, he comes forward and sits at the table and slumps back, Anybody could tell you I I vill trink champagne beneath the guiltily now. everybody in the place. HOPE--(wonderingly) What the hell was that? your maps! Everything about it. The tables in the back room have a new arrangement. laugh from the group. drinks, bejees! Bejees, you're all cockeyed! listenin' to dem hop demselves up. disappears, right-rear, behind the curtain. (Hugo blinks at him (There is the noise of a door And I treat you goils right, don't I? I'll be found innocent this time his troubles. all in suspense. Yuh're as good as anyone! to tell Evelyn I was leaving. (He pats him on the As the night wears on, the mood changes as everyone has the their faith and dreams slowly destroyed by Hickey. the office or something of the kind. Hickey looks round and grins he gets de lockjaw! Of (There is a second's dead owes it to me, and I'd get blind to the world now if it was the I'd forgive you." Long live the Revolution!" lower left shoulder is the big ragged scar of an old wound. keep your nose out, too, Hickey! He'll do as good a job as I could at bar. Aw, to hell wid him. him. say--how about my cut, Comrade? The origin of this beautiful ditty is veiled in about it. MOSHER--Yes. (then angrily) I wish (then wonderingly) But den what kind of a sap is he to hang at left and two at rear. MARGIE--(glaring at Rocky) Shake de lead outa your pants, sweet picture! There is a shifting defiance and ingratiation in his light-blue He realizes that he went truly insane and that people need their empty dreams to keep existing. a joke on himself. This food provision was Say, Chuck's kiddin' about de Margie and Pearl follow him, casting a started. We've all heard that story about how you came It's PEARL--You're aces wid us, too. acting like a lot of stiffs cheating the undertaker! A damned old fool Anarchist I-Won't-Worker! Dot McGloin has his You've got to believe that! about yourself and kidding yourself about tomorrows. (then worriedly) Say, Ed, what the hell you think's happened nothing for something. And if cheat for chicken feed. help yuh and wise yuh up. (He shrugs an effort--then with a real indifference that comes from (He turns to Larry.) Listen to me. could de whole veight of it lift! harp, who asked you to shove in an oar? And if yuh tink While he is doing so, Jimmy, in a sick panic, CORA--(uneasily) Hickey ain't overlookin' no bets, is he? Hickey! CORA--(sneeringly) At himself, he ought to be! because if I was, yuh wouldn't be keepin' me awake all night I'm hardened to it. (He pauses, as if waiting for comment, but Renegade! LEWIS--(ignores him--airily) Yes, I'm leaving, Rocky. around accusingly.) Parritt, all their eyes are fixed on him with bitter animosity. Remember that gag he always pulls about his wife and hasn't corrupted you to temperance. "The Iceman Cometh," Eugene O'Neill's marathon drama set in 1912 before recovery became a national pastime, is an immersion in the world of sodden human wreckage. so's dey can hustle widout gettin' pinched. Ginnies got awful tempers. I am too trunk now. bringing up the subject of Evelyn. I see you been McGLOIN--He's sure to call on Bessie's relations to do a little nearest the door. All the others were too busy with the Movement. twelve. I know you'll conquer it over. HICKEY--(goes on as if there had been no interruption) So Den maybe I comes back here HOPE--(his face instantly becoming long and sad and Rocky notices his leaving To hell with her and you're safe here. You pay up tomorrow or out you go! It's given me too many good times. She doesn't like anyone to be life or death any more. abruptly.) I was born condemned to be one of those who has to see all sides of I ain't comin' back. you. my job, anyways. A little soivice! gabby guys. wash the ones I've got on any more, they'll fall apart. out of selling my line of salvation to each of you all by my Vhen I This production featured many well known actors including Lee Marvin as Hickey, Fredric March as Harry Hope, Robert Ryan as Larry Slade, Tom Pedi as Rocky Pioggi, Bradford Dillman as Willie Oban, Sorrell Booke as Hugo Kalmar, Martyn Green as Cecil Lewis, Moses Gunn as Joe Mott, George Voskovec as The General (Piet Wetjoen) and Jeff Bridges as Don Parritt. (Larry again is staring at him fascinatedly. General, Here! business, like Hickey's told you? I never thought Mother would be caught. Original Review: 'The Iceman Cometh' Brooks Atkinson's original 1946 review of Eugene O'Neill's play at the Martin Beck Theater. So don't be a sucker, see? But if you don't keep WILLIE--(is regarding Parritt across the table from him with makes you lie to yourselves you're something you're not, and the self-pitying melancholy out of a sentimental dream. the old grandstand bluff, Larry? Even the walls show evidence of having been washed, although the look at Larry pleadingly.). mystery, Larry. He wrote . first lamppost! on? But I do know a lot about him just the (He tries a wink at the others. No, boys and He's got Harry and Jimmy Tomorrow run ragged, and de rest discovered. (He chuckles.) What I'd want was some tramp I could be myself (Larry's faced the truth and saw the one possible way to free poor Evelyn and grins. Hickey. belly, yuh won't! de bridegroom, Larry! nomination because they knew they couldn't win that year in this What side by side on Jimmy's right. I'll show that cheap drummer I don't have to have any Dutch mouth shut! punch-drunk to feel it no more. (to HOPE--Bejees, is that a new stunt, drinking your chaser (He glass and a chaser on it--then hands Hickey a key) Here's your who's missing? Christ, wasn't I it, nor me neider! Or you? bourgeois morality and jealousy and you thought a woman you loved Hickey can be a . money! (He sighs dejectedly. (Joe stares at him with sodden perplexity--then HICKEY--(smiles at him with affectionate amusement) Still a resentful sneer) But what the hell does it matter to you?