The Iceman Cometh [antikvár]

SCENES Act One Scene—Back room and a section of the bar at Harry Hope's —early morning in summer, 1912. Act Two Scene—Back room, around midnight of the same day. Act Three Scene—Bar and a section of the back room—morning of the i following day. t Act Four I Scene—Same as Act One. Back room and a section of the bar—around 1:30 a.m, of the next day. Harry Hope's is a Raines-Law hotel of the period, a cheap ginmill of the five-cent whiskey, last-resort variety situated on the downtown West Side of New York. The building, owned by Hope, is a narrow five-story structure of the tenement type, the second floor a flat occupied by the proprietor. The renting of rooms on the upper floors, under the Raines-Law loopholes, makes the establishment legally a hotel and gives it the privilege of serving liquor in the back room of the bar after closing hours and on Sundays, provided a meal is served with the booze, thus making a back room legally a hotel restaurant. This food provision was generally circum- vii THE ICEMAN COMETH ACT ONE Scene: The bac\ room and a section of the bar of harry hope's saloon on an early morning in summer, igi2. The right wall of the hac\ room is a dirty blac\ curtain which separates it from the bar. At rear, this curtain is drawn bac\ from the wall so the bartender can get in and out. The bac\ room is crammed with round tables and chairs placed so close together that it is a difficult squeeze to pass between them. In the middle of the rear wall is a door opening on a hallway. In the left corner, built out into the room, is the toilet with a sign "This is it" on the door. Against the middle of the left wall is a nic\el-in-the-slot phonograph. Two windows, so glazed with grime one cannot see through them, are in the left wall, looking out on a backyard. The walls and ceiling once were white, but it was a long time ago, and they are now so splotched, peeled, stained and dusty that their color can best be described as dirty. The floor, with iron spittoons placed here and there, is covered with sawdust. Lighting comes from single wall brackets, two at left and two at rear. There are three rows of tables, from front to bac\. Three are in the front line. The one at left-front has four chairs; the one at center-front, four; the one at right-front, fit/e. At rear of, and half between, front tables one and two is a table