The setting of Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh is simple, but utilizes powerful imagery, setting the tone for a classic drama of despair and the “pipe dreams” of redemption.

The ironically named “Harry Hope’s” is a drinking establishment on the West Side of New York, which in the summer of 1912 becomes the last refuge of his “friends” and patrons, many of whom are residents of the rooming house directly above the bar. “Harry Hope’s is a Raines-Law hotel of the period,” referring to the attempt by the New York State legislature in 1896 to regulate drinking by passing laws which regulated the sale of alcohol in “hotels” that served food. (Wikipedia) “The food provision,” says O’Neill in the preface, “ was generally circumvented by putting a property sandwich in the middle of each table, an old desiccated ruin of dust-laden bread and mummified ham or cheese which only the drunkest yokel from the sticks ever regarded as anything but noisome table decoration.” (O'Neill) It was a loose pretense to keep Hope’s customers supplied with a steady stream of bad whiskey.

Disgraced Harvard Law student Willie Oban’s “loophole of whiskey” drowns the last vestiges of hope for Harry’s patrons, all sitting in various states of drunkenness in the backroom of the bar. They congregate behind a dirty black curtain in an area divorced from the main barroom.

Larry Slade, a former Anarchist (in “the Movement”) and one of Harry’s drunkards, sees the bar as “the No Chance Saloon. It’s Bedrock Bar, The End of the Line Café, The Bottom of the Sea Rathskeller… Don’t you notice the beautiful calm in the atmosphere? That’s because it’s the last harbor.” (O'Neill)

Lost in the shadows, dark and grim, drinking establishments have long been associated with a sense of despair, a feeling of hopelessness. The setting is 1912, on the cusp of World War I, bringing an ominous tone to the drama of The Iceman Cometh. The dark spirit reflects in the sad musings of the characters, all of whom are battling past demons (and for former adversaries Lewis and Wetjoen, the Boer War itself) as well as resignation from the social turmoil that eventually would envelope the world. The Anarchist movement of the era is prominent, and helps maintain an air of contention that fuels the character’s desire to retreat to Harry’s, relegated to watching life “from the grandstands.”

It is also a place ripe for salvation, or at least the promise of salvation. History reminds us that grief and anguish are the soil where the seeds of redemption take root. The sparse setting in O’Neill’s drama illuminates the meager confidence in the character’s souls, where they sit motionless and pine for lost “pipe dreams,” waiting expectantly for the arrival of Theodore Hickman (Hickey), a salesman whose yearly appearance for Harry’s birthday brings the promise of good times and free booze.

But not this year.

Hickey arrives not with the expected party, but with a new sobriety and a clarity that he quickly tries to inject into the small remnants of hope at Harry’s bar. Hickey has found his salvation, as with all who claim to be a messiah, declares to have found the way, and is convinced his is the true path. He attempts to hold a mirror to the reluctant souls at the bar, urging them to “salvation” by forcing them to reach out from their misery and attempt their dreams. His logic is in the effort to reach their “pipe dreams,” even if they fail, will release them from the confines of their sad fantasies and bring them peace.

It is at that this point where the drama moves from the depth of Harry’s backroom to the main bar, where grimy windows hint at the outside world and an escape from the prison of whiskey soaked dejection. One by one, characters move out to fulfill their redemption, with the intent to leave Harry Hopes’, never to return.

What Hickey failed to grasp was in a life of drunkenness there is little to cling to but one’s own dreams. Moving from the dark cavern of the soul, seen in the dimly lit backroom of Harry’s bar, to the warm light of the real world quickly becomes harsh and unrealistic.

All those moved to action by Hickey’s sales-pitch energy sadly come back to the darkness of the backroom, disheartened and now without even pipe dreams that kept them alive. The bar is a sanctuary but without the relief of hope. Even Harry cannot find the old respite in drink - the booze having no effect. “What did you do to this booze? That’s what we’d like to hear. Bejees you done something. There’s no life or kick in it now.” (O'Neill)

Redemption does come, however, when Hickey confesses to the murder of his loving wife, revealing that madness is the source of his “deliverance.” The dark of the back bar with its heavy curtain become like a church confessional. However, it is not Hickey who is saved; it is his confessors – the startled barflies of Harry’s – who see they were following in the ramblings of a madman and return with relief to the comfort of their old illusions.

The drama ends as it began, in the gloom of a rundown bar, wearily celebrating Harry Hope’s birthday with a melancholy song. Each celebrant, back in their own low dreams, sings a verse of their own, oblivious to the others. For the audience, the bittersweet ending of O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, written in 1940, punctuates a dark foreshadowing of the social unrest prior to World War I, with the horrors and grief of things to come.