"Iceboy," currently playing at Chicago's Goodman Theatre, is  alternately titled "The Completely Untrue Story of How Eugene O'Neil Came to Write 'The Iceman Cometh'." It stars Nick Offerman, who plays O'Neil with the same deadpan humor he brought to his character Ron Swanson on TV's "Parks and Recreation." Nick's real-life wife, Megan Mullally, co-stars as fictional starlet Vera Vimm.

Offerman/O'Neill opens the play by describing to the audience the writer's block he experienced in the late 1930s and how the discovery of a 40,000-year-old Cro-Magnon skeleton frozen in Antarctic ice inspired him to write his next great play. Vera spends her life savings to buy the frozen caveman, then mothers him when the ice melts, and he awakens after thousands of years of sleep. Grey Henson is delightful as the unfrozen troglodyte who reveals that his real name is "Jeff." Jeff/Iceboy quickly learns modern English and displays a talent for musical theatre, which makes his adoptive mother, Vera, jealous.

According to the story that unfolds, a rival playwright promises to write a play about Jeff, titled "The Iceboy Comes," which inspires O'Neil to counter with a new play - "The Iceman Cometh," which features the seedy barrooms and prostitutes with which he is familiar. Of course, it is all nonsense, as you can guess from the play's subtitle. Farcical nonsense abounds in this musical, including Vera's two servants - Lambert (Sarah Stiles), who suffers from a condition that inhibits her health and her self-confidence; and Frankenstein (Alex Goodrich), who remains in full Frankenstein monster character, including lat head, neck bolts, and speaking in grunts.

The play is filled with great music, courtesy of Mark Hollman and Jay Reiss, and laugh-out-loud moments, thanks to Erin Quinn Purcell.

"Iceboy" is a great finale to the Goodman Theatre's Centennial season