Abstract

Theatre, 1956, May, 26
Hatch, Robert | May 26, 1956 issue

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"The Iceman Cometh," is an exhausting play. It is long by the clock and long for its own content. It repeats, it meanders, it falls into doldrums, it infects the audience with a contagion of impatience. And all this is quite deliberate. In the particular corner of hell represented by Harry Hope's saloon the torment is boredom. Men without strength to act or courage to think must erase the hours somehow. So they talk — in endlessly spiraling convolutions, treasuring and repeating every inane aphorism and second-hand figure of speech because they have scarcely enough of them to make the time march.

See Also:

ICEMAN Cometh, The (Theatrical production); THEATER; THEATER audiences; STAGE actors & actresses; PLOTS (Drama, novel, etc.); FICTITIOUS characters
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