Some things just take the time they take. You can’t rush them. I am thinking of baseball, for instance. Or opera. For an even better example, take Eugene O’Neill’s play, The Iceman Cometh, as performed at Brooklyn Academy of Music on Friday, February 6. Co-presented by BAM and Scott Rudin, the Goodman Theater production of this play was nearly 5 hours long. And, as most everyone knows, the subject is hardly uplifting. Luckily, with Nathan Lane playing Hickey and Brian Dennehy playing Larry, the hours passed relatively quickly as I watched the boozy patrons of Harry Hope’s saloon slowly murder their pipe dreams. I am glad I saw this play. I have given it a lot of thought ever since. I would be lying if I told you it wasn’t a bit of a challenge to sit through it. The three intermissions helped, as did all my years of attending operas and baseball games. In all honesty, I am glad there are still a few things in life that don’t move at the speed of a sound bite. That said, I am sure there is a Twitter version of this play. But experiencing it in its entirety is way more rewarding — and much more uncomfortably (and poignantly) real.