<DIV>Eugene O'Neill was the first American playwright to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He completed <I>The Iceman Cometh</I> in 1939, but he delayed production until after the war, when it enjoyed a long run of performances in 1946 after receiving mixed reviews. Three years after O'Neill's death, Jason Robards starred in a Broadway revival that brought new critical attention to O'Neill's darkest and most nihilistic play. In the half century since, <I>The Iceman Cometh</I> has gained enormously in stature, and many critics now recognize it as one of the greatest plays in American drama.  <I>The Iceman Cometh</I> focuses on a group of alcoholics and misfits who endlessly discuss but never act on their dreams, and Hickey, the traveling salesman determined to strip them of their pipe dreams.<BR><BR></DIV>