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The Iceman Cometh at the Bernard Jacobs Theater

We have yet another contender for the least essential production of the season: the current revival of The Iceman Cometh.

Now, I'm not naive. I know why this is on Broadway. Scott Rudin put one of the biggest movie stars in the world, and a very strong actor, Denzel Washington, into a role that's been done to death, in a play that has been done to death. This was easy money. But who on earth wanted to see The Iceman Cometh again? This version is heavily edited and it still runs nearly four hours!

I've mentioned length a few times on this blog; it doesn't matter how long something is. If it's good, it's good, and it can be as long as it needs to be. But this production, directed by George C. Wolfe, is a slog. The pacing is slow, the group of otherwise very talented actors are out to sea, with performances all over the place (some, like Frank Wood and Dakin Matthews, were intelligible from my orchestra row D seat), and the design of it is just awful (the set is especially baffling.) I imagine that if this was your first experience with the play you wouldn't understand why it's endured this long.
There's no respect for the language, and Wolfe's Iceman just has a stage full of middle-aged men whining about their lives. I wanted to yell, "Just have another drink and shut up!"

And what about the main attraction? Denzel? Well. This revival is built around him just simply being...him. I don't think he connected with the character, the language, or his fellow actors. He's being allowed to stomp around the stage and bellow at the top of his lungs. I can't imagine he's being directed at all.

The most egregious moment of terrible directing is the staging of Hickey's big act four monologue. The moment of the play. The "to be or not to be" of The Iceman Cometh. Wolfe has Denzel pull up a chair and sit downstage, facing the audience. So he's delivering the monologue to the audience. This is not a soliloquy. This is not "to be or not to be." Hickey is talking to the other characters in the bar. This is just Wolfe putting his star on display, with no respect for the actual text. Who, logistically, is he talking to? (It's the same question I ask about Hickey's entrance. Wolfe has Denzel coming in through the audience. But where is he coming from? We see the other characters enter and exit through what I presume is the bar's entrance.) And if we're to believe Hickey is so distraught that he couldn't look at everyone as he confesses to his wife murder, well, I am not buying it. This staging just shows that Wolfe doesn't trust the material. It's him saying, "people are here for Denzel. Give them what they want."

Which is the most frustrating thing about this whole production. We're moving away from the art of theater. It's now just a money-maker. The play is the thing. And if you're not going to trust the material and do justice to it, don't do the show. No matter which huge A+++ list movie star wants to do a production of it.

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