DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

The Time of Your Life

A celebration of a classic American play

William Saroyan author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Published:26th Nov '08

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

The Time of Your Life cover

This programme text edition of The Time of Your Life commemorates Saroyan's centenary, highlighting its historical significance and rich character tapestry.

Published in conjunction with the Finborough Theatre, this programme text edition celebrates the centenary of William Saroyan's birth. The production of The Time of Your Life runs from November 26 to December 20, showcasing the essence of Saroyan's work. The play captures the spirit of human experience through a vibrant cast of characters, including wistful dreamers and philosophical souls who navigate the complexities of life.

The Time of Your Life first premiered at The Shubert Theatre in New Haven on October 7, 1939, and has since become a twentieth-century American classic. It is distinguished as the first play to win both the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize, a testament to its enduring significance. The play has enjoyed multiple revivals on Broadway and has been adapted for film and television, further solidifying its place in American theater history.

The recent production at the Finborough Theatre forms part of a broader Saroyan Centennial season, which aims to revisit and celebrate the playwright's contributions. The play's themes encourage audiences to embrace life fully, highlighting the importance of joy amidst sorrow. Critics have praised the production for its warmth and vitality, reinforcing The Time of Your Life as a beacon of hope and reflection in the theatrical landscape.

'William Saroyan's sprawling, elegant, elegiac, of-all-life-in-a-Frisco-honky-tonk 1939 Pulitzer Prize winner The Time of Your Life.' Evening Standard, (1 December 2008) 'A refreshing hymn to human goodness.' Guardian, (2 December 2008) 'Saroyan celebrates life in all its variegated oddity without creating anything so ordered as a plot... [His] play has a genuine love of hobo eccentricity and convinces you that it really is a wonderful world.' Guardian, (2 December 2008) '[Saroyan] anticipates one of the great themes of postwar 20th-century drama, which finds its consummation in Beckett: life as an endless process of waiting.' Guardian, (2 December 2008) 'Behind the play's whimsy lurks a genuine detestation of power, money and materialism.' Guardian, (2 December 2008)

ISBN: 9781408113943

Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 7mm

Weight: 132g

112 pages