The Iceman Cometh is one of the greatest ays in American history, written by America’s greatest playwright, Eugene O’Neill. Although he led a very difficult life, O’Neill was able to overcome this and eventually channel it into his two greatest works, Long Day’s Journey Into Night and The Iceman Cometh. These plays had different storylines and characters, but both were realistic, that is, told one the tale of his depressing childhood full of drinking and his mother’s drug abuse, while the other a similar story of a group of people who waste their lives drinking and wallowing on lost dreams. When O’Neill was writing The Iceman Cometh he was very influenced by his history, an influence that informed the rest of his works as well.

The play begins with eleven men at a bar, ten of whom are sitting at four bar tables and the other is the bartender. At one table, Harry Hope, Pat McGloin, and Ed Mosher sit. Hope is the owner of the bar and rooms upstairs. McGloin is an ex-policeman in his fifties. Mosher is a grafter and an ex-circus employee who is almost 60. The bartender, Rocky, is a strong, small man near the end of his twenties. At another table sits Willie Oban. Oban is a regular-sized man in his late thirties with a law degree from Harvard University. Seated at a table near them are Joe Mott, Piet Wetjoen, James Cameron, and Cecil Lewis. Joe Mott is a fifty-year-old black man who dreams of opening a casino. Piet Wetjoen is a Boer, in his fifties, who was a general for the Boers when they fought a war against the British, earning him the nickname, “The General.” James Cameron, also known as, “Jimmy Tomorrow,” is a clean, likable man in his fifties. Cecil Lewis, also known as “The Captain,” is an almost sixty-year-old former British army captain who fought in the war between the Boers and England. Sitting at the last table are Hugo Kalmar and Larry Slade. Hugo is a short man in his fifties who is an anarchist. Larry Slade is a dirty, tall sixty year old man who once was an anarchist, but now denounces, “the movement” (O’Neill 13).

Act One opens with all of these men sitting around the bar at their respective tables very early in the morning. Most of them are asleep and all of them are completely drunk after a long night of drinking. Larry, Joe, and Rocky are talking about Willie shouting in his sleep, the pursuit of happiness, money, and their pipe dreams, when a boy named Parritt comes in. Parritt is a tall eighteen-year-old, whose mother was an important member of the movement and was sent to jail because he turned her in. Parritt knows Larry from his anarchist days so he tries to talk to him, but Larry does not like Parritt because of what he did to his mother. Everyone is awake at this point and Larry introduces them to Parritt. The men talk about trivial matters, mostly pipe dreams, and things that happened in the past. Later on, Chuck comes in with his soon-to-be wife, Cora. Chuck and Cora are friends of Rocky’s prostitutes, Pearl and Margie. Soon after they arrive Hope and the original men at the bar’s old friend Hickey comes in. Hickey is about fifty and he is a salesman. He is a good old friend of Hope and the other men in the bar, but he has changed from his old partying self. Now he wants to be in control and help everyone lose their pipe dreams. The act ends with everyone in the bar upset with Hickey because he is trying to help them get rid of their pipe dreams.

Act Two is Harry Hope’s birthday party. Hickey buys a cake, flowers, and wine and Cora plays Hope’s favorite song on the piano. Before Hope comes down for the celebration, everyone is complaining about Hickey, because he is trying to fix their lives for them. Hope comes down finally and everyone says Happy Birthday. Hope enjoys the celebration and gives a birthday speech. After his speech, Hickey gives one and mentions his late wife, Evelyn. Everyone asks about her and he informs them that she is dead and he is happy she finally got away from him.

The next morning, Act Three starts with Larry and Parritt fighting about Parritt’s mother. Then a fight almost breaks out with Joe drawing a knife, Chuck threatening with his fists, and Rocky taking out a gun. Wetjoen, Lewis, and Chuck argue about carrying the piano the night before and Hickey comes in. Hickey tries to get everyone to follow up on commitments he made them make about ridding them of their pipe dreams. He gets Lewis and Wetjoen to go outside, McGloin and Mosher to go back to the circus, Willie to go to the district attorney’s office to inquire about a job, Jimmy to go get his old job back, Cora and Chuck to get married, and Harry to take a walk around the block. None of the men follow through and they all come back later clinging to their pipe dreams. Act Three closes with the men pondering about what happened to Hickey’s wife and Harry complaining that, “the booze lost its kick” (O’Neill 172).

Act Four starts with all of the people in the bar sitting at different tables very drunk and tired. They are talking about what might have happened to Hickey’s wife while Larry and Parritt fight about their past with the movement. Hickey finally joins them after making a phone call to the police to turn himself in for killing his wife. Hickey explains to the crowd in the bar about his past, how he met Evelyn, and that he eventually killed her because he cheated on her so much that he knew she was sad, but could not stop forgiving him, so he put her out of her misery. Meanwhile, two detectives whom Hickey called enter the bar. After Hickey confesses to killing his wife, they put him in handcuffs and take him away. The men in the bar talk about how bad they feel for Hickey while Larry and Parritt fight, which eventually drives Parritt to jump off the fire escape and end his life. The play ends with everyone in the bar rejoicing and having another birthday party for Harry now that Hickey is gone, except for Larry, who is looking out the window in misery at Parritt’s lifeless body.

When The Iceman Cometh was first performed by the Theatre Guild, its audience had many different reactions. Some people hated it, saying that it was far too repetitive and boring; others loved it and said that it was another O’Neill masterpiece, but everyone agreed that the production was too long at a lengthy five hours. People were upset that it was a play full of never-ending sadness, “Many were depressed by its unrelieved pessimism, and the public mood of post-World-War II exhaustion proved generally unfavorable to it” (Carpenter 149). This reaction, as the quote suggests, was just a result of the time period. After it was performed again in 1956, the public was enjoying the upbeat 1950’s and liked the play much more. People, “[after] re-reading and thoughtful reconsideration made clear its depth and scope” (Carpenter 149). Since its second production critics have loved The Iceman Cometh with its great tragic yet artistic qualities (Carpenter 149).

One critic, Stark Young, liked the first 1946 production by the Theatre Guild. He thought the production was, “beautiful, luminous, filled with witty and the poetic together mingled” (Young). He thought that the play stood out, not only for its impressive script, but for its great director and phenomenal actors. But he did think it was a bit lengthy, “As ‘The Iceman Cometh’ now stands, it is a remarkable play but could certainly be cut” (Young).

A different critic, Robert Brustein, reviewed a 1985 revival of the 1956 production, using the 1956 production’s lead actor and director. The 1956 production was a revival of the 1946 production, but it was far more successful. This 1956 revival in 1985, “despite arthritic moments in the production, emerges not only richer than ever but as the inspiration for much that has been written for the stage since” (Brustein). In other words, even though a lot of time has passed since the play was first performed, The Iceman Cometh remains effective because people relate to its very realistic characters.

These characters are easy to relate to because they were based on real people, with real emotions, from Eugene O’Neill’s life, and his life was a very tumultuous one. His father was a travelling actor who was constantly on the road and gained fame by playing the lead role in The Count of Monte Christo. He had two brothers, Edmund and Jamie, but Edmund died before Eugene was born. His mother never recovered from Edmund’s death and became a morphine addict as a result of the many depressing events in her life. O’Neill’s family was never very emotionally connected, because his parents wanted to send the children away to school and in order to do that had to stay separate. So Eugene was sent to a boarding school, where he became very interested in literature. (Black 44-74).

After graduating from the boarding school, Eugene was accepted to Princeton University, but he never finished his degree there because he got suspended. Since he was suspended, he decided to go to out to sea, where he became a depressed alcoholic. Soon thereafter, O’Neill’s parents and his brother died, sending him into an even deeper depression. (Black 88-116). To get away from this depression, he used writing as an escape. As O’Neill grew older, his writing improved and he became more popular and very well known. He married first Kathleen Jenkins, then Agnes Boulton, and finally Carlotta Monterey, who turned out to be the love of his life. Throughout O’Neill had three children, but had no relationship with any of them, because he either disapproved of their marital partners, alcoholism, or simply never spoke with them. (Liukkonen). After writing many plays, O’Neill’s hands developed a never-ending shaking, which he could not control; this made it very difficult for him to write. He wrote two of his last plays, Long Day’s Journey Into Night and The Iceman Cometh, while he was near death and, coincidentally, they have been hailed as his two best pieces. These two plays are about his childhood and the condition of his family. They are very dark stories of his brother’s drinking problems and his mother’s morphine addiction. Before he died, O’Neill asked his wife, Carlotta, to wait a while before releasing his plays, but she released them almost immediately. They became huge hits, earning him his fourth Pulitzer Prize, which was awarded after his death.

The darkness of his plays comes right from O’Neill’s heart. His inner depression and sadness spurred him to write this play and Long Day’s Journey Into Night. His parents and brother’s deaths caused him so much inner pain that he poured it out on the pages of these two plays. In Long Day’s Journey Into Night James Tyrone represents James O’Neill, Eugene’s father. He often gets tricked into buying bad real estate because of his dream that one day he will be able to sell these properties for a lot of money and become rich. This fed into O’Neill’s concentration on the pipe dreams of the drunken men in Harry Hope’s bar. His father would get drunk, and then dream about becoming rich through these houses, giving O’Neill the inspiration for the bar crowd.

Most of O’Neill’s plays were plays of realism, and The Iceman Cometh is no exception. It exposes the real life situations of having failed dreams and wallowing one’s life away in alcohol to cover up despair. These men in the bar stay there every day, dream about what never happened, and drown themselves in alcohol, only to pass out, fall asleep, and do it again the next day. They wish death upon themselves because they see it as an end to their everyday life and misery. The play is very dark and negative, but this is used to expose the darker sides of life, the drunken men who waste their life away dreaming and drinking.

The most prevalent theme in The Iceman Cometh is the pipe dream. Every person in the bar has his or her own pipe dream that is holding them back from living a regular life. If each person could rid themselves of the pipe dream, they would live a much happier life. When Hickey comes to the bar he realizes this, and tries to help them lose their pipe dreams, but is unable to do so. The day he tries the hardest to help them lose their pipe dreams, the group responds very positively and do not drink because they believe they can succeed. The next day, however, makes these notions seem like a true dream, because there they are, very early in the morning, all sitting around very drunk and depressed as they were before they tried to rid themselves of their pipe dreams. Parritt’s dream of finally confessing that he did not jail his mother for money, but because he did not like her, is the only dream which comes true. It did not end well though — Parritt then killed himself. The theme of pipe dreams has universal appeal because everyone has pipe dreams, but, as The Iceman Cometh aptly demonstrates, if one lets a pipe dream interfere with one’s life then he or she would be as unhappy as the people at the bar were. A stunted life is no life at all.

Near the end of his life O’Neill sold his soul to his writing. He wrote out his deepest emotions and feelings and drew on his deep dark past. Even though he could not control his hands and it caused him a lot of pain, he still wrote because it was his passion. Relating his works to each other, and his past, Eugene O’Neill created some of the greatest plays in American history.