送冰人来了 (1939)

The Iceman Cometh is a play written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1939. First published in 1946, the play premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on October 9, 1946, directed by Eddie Dowling, where it ran for 136 performances before closing on March 15, 1947. It has subsequently been adapted for the screen multiple times. The work tells the story of a number of alcoholic dead-enders who live together in a flop house above a saloon and what happens to them when the most outwardly "successful" of them embraces sobriety.

New York Times theater critic Brooks Atkinson, at the beginning of the telecast of Sidney Lumet's 1960 television adaptation of The Iceman Cometh, called it "a harsh and ruthless drama.... It is one of America's greatest plays" 14 years after it opened to mixed reviews on Broadway. Many years later, the 1999 Broadway revival, based on a 1998 London production starring Kevin Spacey as Hickey, was staged at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.

During a press conference before the 1946 opening of the stage play, O'Neill said that he believed the secret to happiness was contained within one sentence, quoted from Mark 8:36: "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

Characters

Harry Hope: Widowed proprietor of the saloon and rooming house where the play takes place. He has a tendency to give free drinks, though he constantly says otherwise

Ed Mosher: Hope's brother-in-law (brother of Hope's late wife Bess), a con-man and former circus man

Pat McGloin: Former police lieutenant who was convicted on criminal charges and kicked off the force

Willie Oban: Harvard Law School alumnus

Joe Mott: Former proprietor of a gambling house

General Piet Wetjoen: Former leader of a Boer commando

Captain Cecil Lewis: Former Captain of British infantry

James "Jimmy Tomorrow" Cameron: Former Boer War correspondent who is constantly daydreaming about getting his old job back again tomorrow (hence his nickname)

Hugo Kalmar: Former editor of anarchist periodicals who often quotes the Old Testament

Larry Slade: Former syndicalist-anarchist

Rocky Pioggi: Night bartender, who is paid little and makes his living mostly by allowing Pearl and Margie to stay at the bar in exchange for a substantial cut of the money they make from prostitution, although he despises being called a pimp

Don Parritt: Teenage son of a former anarchist

Pearl: Streetwalker working for Rocky

Margie: Streetwalker working for Rocky

Cora: Streetwalker, Chuck's girlfriend

Chuck Morello: Day bartender, Cora's boyfriend

Theodore "Hickey" Hickman: Hardware salesman

Moran: Police detective

Lieb: Police detective

Plot summary

The Iceman Cometh is set in New York in 1912 in Harry Hope's downmarket Greenwich Village saloon and rooming house. The patrons, twelve men and three prostitutes, are dead-end alcoholics who spend every possible moment seeking oblivion in one another's company and trying to con or wheedle free drinks from Harry and the bartenders. They drift purposelessly from day to day, coming fully alive only during the semi-annual visits of salesman Theodore "Hickey" Hickman. When Hickey finishes a tour of his business territory, which is apparently a wide expanse of the East Coast, he typically turns up at the saloon and starts the party. As the play opens, the regulars are expecting Hickey to arrive in time for Harry's birthday party. The first act introduces the various characters as they bicker among themselves, showing how drunk and delusional they are, all the while awaiting Hickey.

Joe Mott insists that he will soon re-open his gambling casino. The English Cecil "The Captain" Lewis and South African Boer Piet "The General" Wetjoen, who fought each other during the Boer War, are now good friends, and both insist that they'll soon return to their nations of origin. Harry Hope has not left the bar since his wife Bess's death 20 years ago. He promises that he'll walk around the neighborhood on his birthday, which is the next day. Pat McGloin says he hopes to be reinstated into the police force, but is waiting for the right moment. Ed Mosher prides himself on his ability to give incorrect change, but he kept too much of his illegitimate profits to himself and was fired from the circus; he says he will get his job back someday. Hugo Kalmar, a former anarchist, is drunk and passed out for most of the play; when he is conscious, he pesters the other patrons to buy him a drink. Chuck Morello says that he will marry Cora tomorrow. Larry Slade is a former syndicalist-anarchist who looks pityingly on the rest. Don Parritt is the son of a former anarchist who shows up early in the play to talk about his mother (Larry's ex-girlfriend) to Larry; specifically her arrest due to her involvement in the anarchist movement.