413Z Fall 2026 Feast of All Fools: The Iceman Cometh and Tragic Ambiguity

Eugene O’Neill’s play, The Iceman Cometh contends with Long Day’s Journey Into Night for the title of the greatest play ever written by an American, and to which the nod goes is a matter of debate. Iceman started the great creative burst of O’Neill’s final four plays. It creates a very modern tragedy as it dissects the “pipe dreams” of the denizens of Harry Hope’s saloon, asking whether their illusions condemn them to tragedy or protect them from despair. O’Neill creates one of the greatest characters in all of Western drama—the glad-handing salesman and would-be savior, Hickey—who attempts to destroy these pipe dreams without realizing the tragic cost. We will view and examine the play in detail to see how O’Neill created this masterpiece of the modern stage.

Charles Chadwick has an MA in Literature and has taught courses on the plays of Shakespeare, O’Neill, and Edward Albee for OLLI since 2014, as well as courses on poetry and contemporary literature. He is retired after a career in organizational ethics and as an executive in government contracting.