Formal Patterns in The Iceman Cometh

Formal Patterns in The Iceman Cometh NANCY REINHARDT • MOST CRITICS AGREE with Eugene O'Neill's estimation that his The Iceman Cometh is "among the few very best things I've ever done, I know."l Some add that the success of his later plays is the result of earlier experimentation in expressionistic theatre and the subsequent integration of these experiments with a more autobiographical realism.2 Timo Tiusanen has reexamined the later plays in relation to the development of O'Neill's dramatic art: from his early naturalistic and expressionistic experiments to the "dynamic realism" of his later plays where unobtrusively "behind the surface of realism there is a purposeful patterning.,,3 The subtle melding of symbolism and realism in a play like The Iceman has often been contrasted with the obvious, even "gratuitous and excessive" patterning in the "masks, asides, soliloquies, choruses, split characters and the like" of the earlier experimental plays.4 But, to my knowledge, there is no full study in English of the visual and aural "purposeful patterning" of The Iceman Cometh. 5 What are some of these patterns - these rhythms, symmetries and orchestrations that give The Iceman its dynamic shape? To begin with, the play has the overall symbolic complexity and stylized economy of a parable.6 In a tragicomic world patterned with contradictions of life and death, liquor both deadens and sustains. Harry Hope, the father of this motley family of old and decaying men, provides not only the warmth and hope that nourishes their tomorrows but also the dark, crowded backroom where movement is difficult and escape almost impossible. The paradoxical? philosophy of The Iceman Cometh is characterized by Joe Mott's little parable about exploiting the Anarchist and the Socialist. Larry, the master ironist, appreciates Joe's sardonic point of view: "Be God, Joe, you've got all the beauty of human nature and the practical wisdom of the world in that little parable."s Larry's words also apply to the tale of the Iceman, which, like Joe's story, is both 119 120 NANCY REINHARDT nihilistic in its revelation of the abyss of human degradation and optimistic in its simple, life-sustaining philosophy: "The lie of a pipe dream is what gives life to the whole misbegotten mad lot of us, drunk or sober" (p. 578). The Iceman parable about belonging in life and death is also reflected symbolically in the names of some of the characters9 and in the title with its ironic combination of biblical language "cometh" and its allusion to the crude joke about the Iceman coming to make love (and death) to the salesman's wife.10 Aurally the cyclic rhythms are created by the shift from the lively idiosyncratic comments and choral refrains of individuals to their numb and lifeless echoing of each other in unison, and back again at the end of the play to the revival of the various pipe dreams, celebrated by the separate individuals in a "weird cacophony" (p. 727) of thirteen different barroom songs. Visually the patterns of the parable are reflected in the symbolic positioning of the characters and their tables in relation to the bar, windows and doors. Among the first to recognize the "purposeful patterning" in The Iceman were two people from the theatre: Rosamund Gilder, who reviewed the 1946 premiere for Theatre Arts and Jose Quintero, who directed the 1956 revival at the Circle in the Square. Rosamund Gilder emphasizes the "constant visual comment" on the theme of the play provided by the grouping of the tables and the characters around them: The stage is almost continuously peopled by all the characters in the play at once. There is little movement; there is only an antiphonal development of themes. Besides the pipe-dream motive, which is developed in turn by each of the characters playing in groups of threes and fours, there is also the predominant, haunting theme of Death. O'Neill's bums are all in pursuit of forgetfulness, of sleep, of death. They spend most of their time in blissful or tormented alcoholic slumber. O'Neill uses this device to bring them in and out of the action without making them leave the...