nWe live and die, in the spirit, in solitude, and the true strength of Iceman is its intense dramatic exemplification of that somber reality. . . . Life, in Iceman, is what it is in Schopenhauer: illusion.--from the foreword by Harold Bloom nThe Iceman Cometh focuses on a group of alcoholics and misfits who endlessly discuss but never act on their dreams, and Hickey, the traveling salesman determined to strip them of their pipe dreams. Eugene ONeill--the first American playwright to win the Nobel Prize in literature--completed Iceman in 1939, but he delayed production until after the war, when it enjoyed a long run of performances in 1946 after receiving mixed reviews. Three years after ONeills death, Jason Robards starred in a Broadway revival that brought new critical attention to ONeills darkest and most nihilistic play. Since then, The Iceman Cometh has gained enormously in stature; many critics now recognize it as one of the greatest plays in American drama. n nn