Nathan Lane, Brian Dennehy in The Iceman Cometh at the Goodman? Maybe

Theater Twitterers have been all atwitter today over this Daily Beast interview with Nathan Lane, in which the Addams Family star talks wearily of New York Post gossipmonger Michael Riedel's coverage of the show; Lane says, apparently jokingly, "I think this might be my farewell to the musical theater." Of greater interest to me is this passage from writer Kevin Sessums's introduction: "[Lane's] next dramatic role is a future production of The Iceman Cometh in Chicago, in which he'll play Hickey opposite Brian Dennehy as Larry Slade to be directed by Robert Falls."

Photo: Liz Lauren

Falls and Dennehy, of course, have been partnering on the works of Eugene O'Neill for two decades. The Iceman Cometh was their first O'Neill collaboration, in a 1990 production in which Dennehy played Hickey to James Cromwell's Slade (pictured above, it was later remounted in ’92 at Dublin's Abbey Theatre). A spokesperson for the Goodman tells me that Falls and Dennehy are always tossing around ideas about how next to approach O'Neill, and that they've definitely discussed revisiting Iceman; the spokesperson also notes that Dennehy and Falls were rehearsing the recent double bill of Hughie and Krapp's Last Tape while Lane was performing around the corner in Addams Family's Chicago tryout. While the three definitely socialized and Iceman was almost certainly discussed, I'm told, it's still purely hypothetical. Officially, there's nothing to announce.