Hailed by many critics as Eugene O’Neill’s finest work, The Iceman Cometh 
opened at the Martin Beck Theater on Broadway. The play, about desperate
tavern bums clinging to illusion as a remedy for despair, was the last O’Neill
play to be produced on Broadway before the author’s death in 1953. Like
many of his other works, the play drew on O’Neill’s firsthand experiences
with all-night dive bars and desperate characters.