The Place: Harry Hope's bar, a cheap gin-mill of the five-cent whiskey, last-resort variety situated downtown on the West Side of New York.
The Time: Salesman Hickey's birthday celebration, two days during the summer of 1912--a time when all tomorrows are forced abruptly to become today; when the delineation between hopes, dreams, and pipe dreams disintegrates; when "self-knowledge" destroys self-respect, compassion--and life.
One of the last of Eugene O'Neill's plays, The Iceman Cometh stands today with Long Day's Journey into Night and A Moon for the Misbegotten as the supreme expression of his dramatic genius.
About the Author
Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) is one of the most significant forces in the history of American theater. With no uniquely American tradition to guide him, O'Neill introduced various dramatic techniques, which subsequently became staples of the U.S. theater. By 1914 he had written twelve one-act and two long plays. Of this early work, only Thirst and Other One-act plays (1914) was originally published. From this point on, O'Neill's work falls roughly into three phases: the early plays, written from 1914 to 1921 (The Long Voyage Home, The Moon of the Caribbees, Beyond the Horizon, Anna Christie); a variety of full-length plays for Broadway (Desire Under the Elms; Great God Brown; Ah, Wilderness!); and the last, great plays, written between 1938 and his death (The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey Into Night, A Moon for the Misbegotten). Eugene O'Neill is a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1936.