The Time of Your Life

Time of Your Life, The (1939), a play by William Saroyan. [ Booth Theatre, 185 perf.; Pulitzer Prize, NYDCC Award.] At a run‐down San Francisco bar, the open‐hearted, openhanded Joe (Eddie Dowling) encourages one and all to be their own eccentric selves. He finds employment for a would‐be dancer, Harry (Gene Kelly), and fosters the romance between his sidekick Tom (Edward Andrews) and the good‐hearted streetwalker Kitty Duval (Julie Haydon). An old Indian fighter, Kit Carson (Len Doyle), spins wild yarns of his imaginary past and kills the vicious detective Blick (Grover Burgess), who seeks to destroy the serene world of the contented castaways. After a pinball addict, Willie (Will Lee), strikes the jackpot, Joe muses, “In the time of your life, live, so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches.” John Mason Brown called the work “at once gleeful and heartbreaking, tender and hilarious, probing and elusive.” The Theatre Guild offering was the first play to win both major drama awards. Revivals have been plentiful, particularly in regional theatres.

William Saroyan
1939

William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life opened on Broadway on October 25, 1939, to mixed reviews. Many in the general public enjoyed the play, but the critics were less enthusiastic. In contrast to many of the playwrights working during the later years of the Great Depression, Saroyan was not interested in social protest; his play depicts a group of alienated loners in a shabby waterfront bar, looking for love and meaning in their lives. The play won the 1940 New York Drama Critics Circle Award and the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for drama.

Despite these awards, many critics felt that the play was unsophisticated, unrealistic, and too romantic, failing to reflect the dark and troubled times in which it was set; some found it confusing. Saroyan was rarely a darling of the critics and maintained a strained relationship with the East Coast theatrical world throughout most of his career. Much of his attitude came from that fact that he distrusted those who were highly educated and felt that the intelligentsia could not appreciate his plays and their simple messages.

The play takes place in 1939, just before the start of World War II. The play is presented in five acts over the course of a day in October 1939. The five acts are set primarily in a seedy San Francisco waterfront bar, through which numerous colorful but distressed characters move in their search for something more out of life than what they have. The action centers on Joe, a rich young man who does not have to work any longer and can spend most of his time drinking, doing small favors for people, and sending his simpleminded friend, Tom, on crazy errands. People enter the bar and interact with Joe; Nick, the bar's Italian immigrant owner; and one another. The tension in the play appears toward its end when Blick, a spiteful vice cop, returns to the bar to make trouble for Nick and a sad prostitute named Kitty Duval.

This article is about the play. For other uses, see Time of Your Life.

The Time of Your Life
1st edition cover (Harcourt Brace)
Written by	William Saroyan
Date premiered	25 October 1939
Place premiered	Booth Theatre New York City
Original language	English
Genre	Drama
Setting	a San Francisco bar, October 1939
IBDB profile

The Time of Your Life a 1939 five-act play by American playwright William Saroyan. The play is the first drama to win both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. The play opened 25 October 1939 at the Booth Theatre in New York City. It was produced by the Theatre Guild and with staging by Eddie Dowling, who also starred as Joe, and William Saroyan.

Contents 1 Characters 2 Plot 3 Adaptations 4 Awards and nominations 5 References 6 External links

Characters

Main Characters Joe, a loafer with money and a good heart Tom, Joe's sidekick Kitty Duval, a young woman Nick, the bar owner Arab, a philosopher Kit Carson, an old trapper McCarthy, a bright dock worker Krupp, McCarthy's friend Harry, a natural born dancer and bad comedian Wesley, a young black pianist Willie, a pinball fanatic Dudley, a young man in love Elsie, a nurse, the one Dudley loves Lorene, an unattractive woman Mary L., a beautiful but unhappy woman of means Blick, a bully who works for the Vice Squad

Minor Characters A Newsboy A Drunkard Nick's Ma Sailor Killer, a streetwalker Killer's sidekick Society Gentleman Society Lady Cops

Plot

The play is set in Nick's Pacific Street Saloon, Restaurant and Entertainment Palace, a run down dive bar in San Francisco. Much of the action of the play centers around Joe, a young loafer with money who encourages each of the bar's patrons in their eccentricities. Joe helps out a would-be dancer, Harry and sets up his flunky, Tom, with a prostitute, Kitty Duval. The bar is frequented by a number of colorful characters, including a frenetic young man in love, an old man who looks like Kit Carson, and an affluent society couple.

The Time of Your Life has been revived three times on Broadway - in 1940 with Dowling and Saroyan directing again, in 1969 directed by John Hirsch and in 1975 directed by Jack O'Brien.

Adaptations

Main articles: The Time of Your Life (film) and The Time of Your Life (TV film)

The play was adapted for film in 1948 with H. C. Potter directing James Cagney as Joe and his sister, Jeanne Cagney as Kitty Duval. In 1958 an adaptation by A.J. Russell was presented in a live television broadcast directed by Tom Donovan with stars Jackie Gleason, Jack Klugman, and Dick York for the Playhouse 90 series.

Awards and nominations

Awards

• 1939 New York Drama Critics' Circle Best Play
• 1940 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

References

• Saroyan, William (1939). The Time of Your Life. New York: Harcourt, Brace. p. 247 p. OCLC 34643576. 

External links

• The Time of Your Life at the Internet Broadway Database
• The Time of Your Life at the Internet off-Broadway Database
• The Time of Your Life at the Internet Movie Database

v • d • e Pulitzer Prize for Drama Craig's Wife (1926) · In Abraham's Bosom (1927) · Strange Interlude (1928) · Street Scene (1929) · The Green Pastures (1930) · Alison's House (1931) · Of Thee I Sing (1932) · Both Your Houses (1933) · Men in White (1934) · The Old Maid (1935) · Idiot's Delight (1936) · You Can't Take It with You (1937) · Our Town (1938) · Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1939) · The Time of Your Life (1940) · There Shall Be No Night (1941) · The Skin of Our Teeth (1943) · Harvey (1945) · State of the Union (1946) · A Streetcar Named Desire (1948) · Death of a Salesman (1949) · South Pacific (1950) Complete list: (1918-1925) · (1926-1950) · (1951-1975) · (1976-2000) · (2001-present)

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