The Iceman Cometh on Broadway -- Risky and Brilliant with Denzel Washingon

(:)(:)(:)(:) 4 snouts up out of 5 (Understanding My Snout-Based Rating System) for The Iceman Cometh on Broadway in NYC now starring Denzel Washington.  There's a few reasons that this brilliant play by perhaps the best American playwright, Eugene O'Neill, doesn't get staged often: it's got 4 acts; it takes just under 4 hours to run; it has a LARGE cast (which is fine for a musical but for a talky play, unusual); and it is set in 1912 and has a lot of obscure references from that time period.  

This production resolved a number of these difficulties simply by casting Denzel Washington as Hickey--the lead charismatic figure (although the part of Larry, played in this production by David Morse is very large--I think he's onstage the whole time).  By having Denzel as the lead (who doesn't enter until Act II), you spend the marvelous Act I on the edge of your seat as everyone on stage waits for "Hickey" to come, everyone in the audience waits for Denzel.  And even though that's a great first act (crazy to see all these drunks passed out on stage, who periodically come to and say something amazing), the play really starts when Hickey/Denzel character arrives so the 4 hours fly by.

Secondly, Denzel Washington's able easy performance somehow makes everything feel au courant even when it isn't--his character mocks the other characters' focus on "The (Communist Wobbly Workers) Movement," the "Boer (South African--British vs. Africaans) War " and, most of all, their drunken "pipe dreams." (My husband counted something like 41 uses of the phrase "pipe dreams" in the play).

But also Denzel being African American in a sea of white faces (there is one character, Joe,  who is written as black, more about that in a minute, the production chose to do "traditional" casting for all the other characters except Denzel's) somehow makes the play feel more current--AND in doing so, this casting choice (and Denzel's winning performance) paves the way for us to easily see O'Neill's central dramatic problem is as real as ever today.

The play takes place entirely in a bar on the lower west side of NYC in 1912.  The characters are a whole bunch of male drunks and 3 female prostitutes who basically live in the rooms above this dive.  Like most plays, it reflects more about the time in which it was written than it does the time in which it was set.  Written in 1940, the play's focus on alcoholism, and the possibility of recovering from it (not considered likely or discussed much in 1912), seems to have been heavily informed by the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1934 and its subsequent literature.  Although some researchers think otherwise, believing that O'Neill as a severe alcoholic from an addicted family, recovered from alcoholism by writing his plays.  

Hickey, it turns out, has gotten sober and has come back to encourage the group of drunks to get honest about themselves and face the fact that their dreams are strictly pipe-induced (yes, originally the term comes from opium dens) so will never come to pass.

A word about O'Neill's black character, Joe.  I'd like to hear what others think.  I think it must have been somewhat groundbreaking for 1940 O'Neill to create a black male character who hangs out basically nonstop with white men as a peer drunk.  Granted he seems to have some work responsibilities, but so do at least 5 other white characters, and they are minimal.  The white characters display racism towards him and hurl awful epithets at him, but Joe stands up for himself and holds his own.  Joe has his own parallel story line and pipe dream--some really funny and interesting stories.  The greatest compliment he is given is that he is "white," much discussed, which is offensive to our ears and jarring to hear.  It strikes me that most other 20th century white playwrights simply avoided the issue of race altogether and wrote entirely white characters--or had poorly developed black characters in the background as a servants.   

The female characters in this play, in contrast, are all either prostitutes or discussed as "bitches," and slapped or physically threatened by their bartender pimps are more caricatures, not fully developed--although they do go on "on strike" at one point.

If you see the play, Bill and I recommend taking the steps we took:  read the play first, and take a nap in the afternoon prior.  It is a little difficult to make out the dialects of some of the characters without the background of having read it or being familiar.

In all though, the power of O'Neill's writing, the strength of Washington's performance and the unique vision of tons of drunks on stage shine through.  See this production if you can.