Theatreguide.London
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The Theatreguide.London Review
In March 2020 the covid-19 epidemic
forced the closure of all British theatres. Some companies adapted
by putting archive recordings of past productions online, others
by streaming new shows, and various online archives preserve still
more vintage productions. Even as things return to normal we
continue to review the experience of watching live theatre
onscreen.
The
Time Of Your Life
The
Acting Company and PBS 1976 Spring
2023
American writer William Saroyan is best remembered for his novels and short stories, but this 1939 play won the Pulitzer Prize For Drama and may well be his finest work.
The Acting Company is a touring repertory company originally made up of the first graduates of the Julliard School's newly-formed drama department in 1972.
The company performed Saroyan's play as part of a Broadway season in 1975, and the production was recorded for Public Television in 1976.
The play is set in a cheap but respectable bar in San Francisco, whose owner Nick talks tough but is a soft touch for a free meal or a job.
Chief among the regulars is Joe, a benign philosopher and observer of life who has enough money to drink champagne, stay happily high and pay for the whim-of-the-moment errands he sends his pal Tom on.
Also enjoying the unjudgemental warmth of Nick's are an old cowboy who cadges drinks by offering tales of his wild adventures, a weary and beaten-down streetwalker, a young Romeo trying desperately to get through to his girlfriend on the telephone, a comedian who doesn't know any jokes, and various others hanging out or passing through.
Between philosophical comments Joe takes pity on Kitty, finds Tom a real job, encourages a romance between them and decides it is time for him to move on as well.
It is all a load of sentimental hooey, of course. But Saroyan's greatness lies in his ability to make us want to believe it, if only for the couple of hours of the play and maybe a while longer.
The playwright floods the stage with so much love for his characters that we park our scepticism at the curb and choose to believe that Kitty is more than a three dollar whore, that Joe isn't just a rich drunk hiding from life in a little world he can control with a few bucks, that Tom and Kitty (and Dudley and his girl) stand a chance of happiness, that the old drunk's tall tales might even be true.
Does Saroyan himself believe in this fable? That hardly matters, because what he does know is that the audience needs to believe in it, at least for a while – that there is a positive, even health-giving quality to fairy tales.
And, like that almost-contemporary American dramatic assertion of optimism, Thornton Wilder's Our Town, The Time Of Your Life delivers. It wins you over. It makes you feel better. It cleanses your soul.
Patti LuPone (Kitty) would be starring on Broadway in Evita within three years, and if you don't blink you'll spot Kevin Kline in a small role (He had bigger parts in the rest of the repertory). Gerald Gutierrez (the telephonic lover) became a Tony-winning Broadway director.
Nicolas Surovy (Joe) and most of the largely young cast generally went on to steady if not spectacular careers, the sort that Wikipedia or the IMDB characterise as “best known for” one featured role in a film or recurring appearance on a TV series.
The Time Of Your Life is worth watching. It will make you feel good.
Gerald
Berkowitz
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