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The New York Times, February 12, 2015 ‘The Iceman Cometh’ Revived, With Nathan Lane and Brian Dennehy By CHARLES ISHERWOOD
The zombies stomping all over pop culture these days will seem about as scary as Santa’s elves once you’ve met the dead souls inhabiting the sepulchral gloom of Robert Falls’s production of Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh.” The bloodletting and brain-eating in this case may be metaphoric, but make no mistake: None of the suffering men and women seeking comfort in the bottom of a bottle in Harry Hope’s saloon will emerge truly alive. Mr. Falls’s magisterial staging of O’Neill’s harrowing drama, one of his very greatest, floored me when I first saw it at the Goodman Theater almost three years ago. Once again, at the conclusion of this blistering production, currently at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, I had to scrape myself up from my seat, with my innards churning. As enacted by a cast that is not likely to be bettered this season — on Broadway or off — O’Neill’s symphonic ode to the lies we tell ourselves to survive sustains an enthralling dramatic intensity for pretty much all of its famously long running time, notwithstanding the undeniable longueurs and repetitions. (You could get mighty soused if you knocked back a shot every time the words “pipe dream” cropped up in the dialogue; this is not recommended.)
I should begin with a lusty bravo for Nathan Lane, who climbs the mighty Everest of the play’s most challenging role, the salesman Hickey who harbors a grim secret, with a restless energy that never fails to impress. Mr. Lane has long been the New York theater’s justly cherished king of comedy, musical or otherwise. In fact, Mr. Lane ended his sold-out run in the fluffy backstage romp “It’s Only a Play” just days before beginning rehearsals on “Iceman,” one of the bleakest dramas in the canon. As an acting feat, one might compare this to emerging from a bubble bath only to swan-dive into a frozen pond — daunting to contemplate, let alone accomplish. And yet Mr. Lane, whose performance I still feel could scrape a little deeper into the scorched soul of Hickey, is not really the occasion here. He is surrounded by cast members, including Brian Dennehy, as Hickey’s foremost existential foe, Larry Slade, who collectively forge transfixing light from the dim depths of their characters. Nominally dead to the world they may be — we first see these down-and-outers plunged in a complete darkness that mirrors their booze-fueled blackouts — and yet unmistakable life stirs inside these hollowed-out husks, the life that great acting can breathe into great writing. When they have dragged themselves unhappily into consciousness, and the thirst for that first drink begins, they assemble into a grotesque tableau of human decrepitude. (Natasha Katz’s superlative lighting is a study in theatrical chiaroscuro.) Mr. Dennehy’s Larry, a former lefty who’s lost his ideals, claims to be doggedly determined to drink himself to death as quickly as he can manage. He sits like a stone sentinel in his chair, contemptuously describing the bar’s denizens to the antsy young Don Parritt (Patrick Andrews), who’s haunted by his betrayal of his own mother, Larry’s onetime lover. Even as Mr. Dennehy anatomizes his fellow patrons’ misery (“They manage to get drunk, by hook or by crook, and keep their pipe dreams, and that’s all they ask of life”), his slab-like face barely registers any trace of feeling at the squalor bubbling into life around him. Larry’s slit eyes remain fixed almost throughout the play on the sweet horizon of nonexistence, although we can tell he, more than anyone else, understands the dark game that Hickey will come to play. The rest of the gang has a bit more energy, roused by the prospect of an expected visit from Hickey, who’s always good for a laugh and a round or two. While they wait for this reprieve, they squabble and brag and joke — and try to cadge a drop or two from Harry, the proprietor of the dive, who is portrayed by the marvelous Canadian actor Stephen Ouimette, oozing bone-deep misery from every sallow pore. Harry alternately berates and indulges his miserable flock, sharing with them both self-contempt and self-delusion: Although he hasn’t set foot outside the saloon since his wife died two decades ago, he may just do it any day now, if and when he gets the notion. When they are in their cups, all of the characters share a similar belief that they can somehow right the sunken ships of their lives. Jimmy Tomorrow, a former war correspondent played with heartbreaking grace by James Harms, keeps putting off his plan to get a job. The streetwalker Cora (the terrific Kate Arrington) and her beau Chuck (Marc Grapey) are going to tie the knot any day now and settle down to a respectable life as farmers. Willie Oban, played with ravaged intensity by John Hoogenakker, is going to put that law degree to use once again. Joe Mott, the onetime hotshot proprietor of a gambling house for blacks, likewise dreams of an imminent return to his glory days. John Douglas Thompson, another of New York’s acting treasures, gives one more unforgettable performance as this humiliated man, making us feel how deeply Joe has been scarred by the brutally casual racism of the times (the play is set in 1912). When Hickey at last arrives, with Mr. Lane bursting into the saloon like a merry tornado, he brings unsettling tidings. He’s off the sauce, for one, a disturbing notion to his former fellow bottle-dwellers. But he’s got something special to sell, the secret, he says, to the glow that seems to emanate from him, emphasizing the shadowy nature of everyone else. By forcing his friends to confront the delusions by which they all live, Hickey hopes to jolt them out of their sodden withdrawal and return them to the land of the living. No prizes will be awarded for guessing how well his plans turn out. The characters’ unease with this new Hickey — and Mr. Lane’s performance is marked by an evangelical fervor you can feel even from the audience — spreads like poison among them, even as they rouse themselves to try to slay their demons. In the final act, they stagger back into the comfort of the bar, defeat etched even more deeply on their weary faces. Returned to their customary positions at the scarred tables of Kevin Depinet’s effectively spare set, they sit motionless in their misery, staring blankly ahead, looking like listing tombstones. Even the booze has lost its kick. Can a drama this corrosively pessimistic give pleasure? Mr. Falls’s production reminds us that as with all great tragedies, it can at least provide a measure of solace, whispering that we are not alone, even when we are at our lowest. For while the play’s characters may seem too far gone down the path to self-destruction to stir any sense of recognition, the greatness in “The Iceman Cometh” resides in the piercing clarity of O’Neill’s vision of how, the human will being what it is, even unendurable life can be endured. If that seems an oxymoron, well, pour a little whiskey and let us ponder the question. |
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