Thursday, January 29, 2009

The Iceman Cometh


As a newish but diehard fan of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, I just got a very nice little accidental information surprise while searching for a book at work. Until now, I was unaware that "The Iceman Cometh" was a famous play by Eugene O'Neill (also wrote "A Streetcar Named Desire") which Amazon sums up like this:

O'Neill mined the tragedies of his own life for this depiction of a ragged collection of alcoholics in a rundown New York tavern-hotel run by Harry Hope. The saloon regulars numb themselves with whiskey and make grandiose plans, but they do nothing. They await the arrival of big-spending Theodore Hickman ("Hickey"), who forces his cronies to pursue their much-discussed plans, hoping that real failure will make them face reality. Hickey finally confesses that he killed his long-suffering wife just hours before he arrived at Harry's, and he turns himself in to the police. The others slip back into an alcoholic haze, clinging to their dreams once more.

O'Neill's play was clearly the inspiration for Charlie's masterpiece: "The Night Man Cometh" was already genius but this gives it a nice satirical literary twist and adds some funny insight into the writers' view of the characters on the show. I love finding out things like this.

3 comments:

The Funwire said...

woaah!! SWEET!! :-)

Alissa said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Alissa said...

That's funny, you don't look newish!
(Sorry, I had a typo in the first comment. Really blows the spontaneity of the whole thing.)