Word: neillian
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Director-screenwriter Woody Allen and co-writer Douglas McGrath have comically and affectionately reimagined the archetypes of backstage dramas from the days when the New York theater was a robust and glamorous institution. They're all here, doing their best to bring David's neo- O'Neillian work to life: the wise, temporizing, desperately undercapitalized producer (Jack Warden); the aging ingenue (Tracey Ullman), complete with ill-tempered lapdog; the agreeably self-destructive leading man (Jim Broadbent); above all, the Great Lady of the Theater ("I don't play frumps or virgins"), portrayed by Dianne Wiest in a boldly swooping performance...
...theatergoers for 2,500 years. There was plenty to buzz about. There was the exciting fact that The Iceman Cometh was the first new O'Neill play to be produced since Days without End (1934). There was its cryptic title, clumsily poetic, naively sardonic and intensely O'Neillian, which caused one foreboding wag to suggest that a better name would be The Ice Tray Always Sticks Twice. The play had been rehearsed under heavy wrappings of secrecy. Almost nobody in the audience was sure what it was about, though some had paid $25 a seat to find...
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