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.
Characters
- Main Characters
- Joe, a loafer with money and a good heart
- Tom, Joe's sidkick
- Kitty Duval, a young woman
- Nick, the bar owner
- Arab, a philosopher
- Kit Carson, an old Native American
- 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
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- Minor Charactors
- A Newsboy
- A Drunkard
- Nick's Ma
- Sailor
- Killer
- Killer's sidekick
- Society Gentleman
- Society Lady
- Cops
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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
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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 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, 247 p. OCLC 34643576.
External links
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