The Time of Your Life
Contents ( 8)
The Time of Your Life
William Saroyan
Contents
The Time of your Life
Act One
Act Two
Act Three
Act Four
Act Five
Author Biography
The Time of Your Life was first presented at the Shubert Theatre, New Haven, USA, on 7 October 1939. It was directed by Eddie Dowling and William Saroyan, and transferred first to Boston and then to the Booth Theatre in New York. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Drama Critics’ Award.
The Time of Your Life
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. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let it be free and unashamed. Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are the things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart. Be the inferior of no man, nor of any man be the superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man’s guilt is not yours, nor is any man’s innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret. In the time of your life, live – so that in the wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.
The Place
Nick’s Pacific Street Saloon, Restaurant and Entertainment Palace at the foot of Embarcadero, in San Francisco. A suggestion of Room 21 at the New York Hotel, upstairs, around the corner.
The Time
Afternoon and night of a day in October 1939.
The People
Joe, a young loafer with money and a good heart
Tom, his admirer, disciple, errand boy, stooge and friend
Kitty Duval, a young woman, with memories
Nick, owner of Nick’s Pacific Street Saloon, Restaurant and Entertainment Palace
Arab, an Eastern philosopher and harmonica player
Kit Carson, an old Indian-fighter
McCarthy, an intelligent and well-read longshoreman
Krupp, his boyhood friend, a waterfront cop who hates his job but doesn’t know what else to do instead
Harry, a natural-born hoofer who wants to make people laugh but can’t
Wesley, a coloured boy who plays a mean and melancholy boogie-woogie piano
Dudley, a young man in love
Elsie, a nurse, the girl he loves
Lorene, an unattractive woman
Mary L, an unhappy woman of quality and great beauty
Willie, a marble-game maniac