"Who’s going to feel like nodding off, or slump into terminal angst, when Mr. Wolfe has filled the stage with such delectably seasoned hams...Watching this latest incarnation, I laughed more often than I teared up. But this 'Iceman' acquires its own poignant lyricism...With its heightened performances and tone-poem visuals, this production also clearly elicits the musical nature of 'Iceman.'"
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"The language is stiff with dated slang; key terms like 'pipe dream' recur literally dozens of times. Yet the cumulative effect of this handsomely decrepit production is bracing. Director George C. Wolfe keeps things moving at a quick clip; not all of the bigger character choices pay off—and some of the actors are hard to hear or understand—but there are performances to savor...It is Washington’s show, and he seizes it with both hands in Hickey’s climactic monologue."
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"The kind of production that puts prospective audience members off 'classics' for good...You’d be within your rights to run screaming from the theater by the first of the show’s two intermissions. If, however, you decided to stick around for the whole moribund, infuriating ride, you might find yourself wondering why this play is considered a classic at all...Wolfe, despite his long and lauded directorial career, doesn’t seem to have something specific to say about the play."
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"Washington's performance, not at all surprisingly, lacks depth and inner tension: You can feel the momentum of the play go slack every time he enters. In all other aspects, though, this 'Iceman' is a production of high distinction...He’s taken a cast full of familiar faces and welded them into a true ensemble...He’s also cut 'Iceman' by roughly an hour, and the play is the better for having been pruned so rigorously."
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"Though certainly built around mega-star Washington, this 'Iceman' is so well-cast and performed that Washington’s late, happy-dance entrance almost seems a worry. Is something delicate about to be knocked off balance? And in some ways, it is. Washington is at his best here when he’s mixing with the rabble...An ensemble as outstanding as it is large."
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"Does marquee attraction Denzel Washington delivereth the goods? You bet — and then some...Washington has shiny star quality and 100-proof charisma that fits like a glove for Hickey. But the performance goes beyond mere surface gloss...Otherwise, Wolfe’s staging is a mixed bag. Part of that is because the play is so long, talky and repetitive...But there are also bright spots in the new production."
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"Helmer George C. Wolfe has trimmed the play to a reasonable length without losing the nuances in the various life histories of the boys in the barroom. But this is still a long play with a lot of moving parts. The first act, in which all the characters are introduced and roughly defined, is the most attenuated. Everyone lightens up – a bit too much, actually – in the second act, which shoots for comedy. But everything comes together in the third act, which spells Drama with a capital D."
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"George C. Wolfe's revival feels on some levels like it's still cohering, the underlying despair remaining muted for too much of the three-hour-45-minute running time. But it comes together in a powerful final act driven by the searing confessional monologue of Denzel Washington's Hickey...Wolfe has assembled a talented ensemble, almost all digging deep into their characters...In those closing scenes, the play finally achieves its full tragic grandeur."
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