'The Iceman Cometh': Denzel takes on O'Neill

‘THE ICEMAN COMETH’: (left to right) Michael Potts, Denzel Washington & company. Julieta Cervantes

THE ICEMAN COMETH
Written by Eugene O’Neill
Directed by George C. Wolfe
Through July 1, 2018
Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre
242 West 45th Street
(212-239-6200),www.icemanonbroadway.com

By David NouNou

Eugene O’Neill’s classic has been and still is hailed as a classic. Clocking in at nearly four hours, you have to have the stamina of a bull elephant to sit through a repetitious, “slosh fest” babblethon of has-beens and “never weres” who sit all day and night boozing and bemoaning their pipe dreams and wallow in the lies they conjure for themselves to see life through another day.

Set in 1912 at Harry Hope’s bar in the Lower West Side of New York City, the denizens of this dive are awaiting the arrival of Theodore Hickman or “Hickey” (Denzel Washington). The audience in the theater must wait over an hour until Mr. Washington makes his entrance (so you have to endure all the wallowing as well). He is a traveling salesman, a drunkard like themselves, to come and cheer them up from their life of misery with his brand of humor and open pockets to buy the drinks. However, on this arrival Hickey doesn’t bring fun, but instead brings them sobriety to face the next day and get out and do something with their lives.

They all pull it together to go out in the world and face their fears, except for the disenchanted Socialist and resident cynic, Larry Slade (David Morse) who knows the reality of things. They all return more despondent because what they were hoping to find were only untruths and pipe dreams. Hickey’s mission wasn’t so much as to help them go out to find jobs or connect with the world; he wants to help them face their future without fear or living in pipe dreams.

Denzel Washington and David Morse provide solid performances and manage to make this ponderous evening bearable. Honestly speaking, spending eight hours at Angels in America, which deals with the advent of AIDS and Roy Cohn, is more uplifting and epic than this miserable evening of self-pitying and self-loathing, but if one is a Denzel Washington or Eugene O’Neill fan, it should not be missed.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published May 29, 2018