Customer Reviews

William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life (Broadway Theatre Archive)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Saroyan's best play, written in a week in 1939, brings both the color and foreboding of that period vividly to life. By turns funny and heartbreaking, the play manages to extract the poignancy of the human experience from the seemingly chaotic comings-and-goings of a shaggy collection of tavern denizens, led by "Joe." If you're not moved or amused by the events that transpire on a late afternoon in Nick's Entertainment Palace, then you really haven't lived enough. Boring this play is not.

You will LOVE this DVD! It talks of a simpler time, possibly even a happier time when technology hadn't taken over the world. When we put our trust in people, not machines. A time when people actually cared for one another. Of course there was still a social food chain, but it was different. Kids played in the street with each other, not with their iPods. You could talk to a stranger with little risk. There was still crime of course but the word "terrorism" did not exist. It takes place in 1939, Pre-WWII, and things were different. If nothing else you will appreciate the little things like being able to buy a beer with the change in your pocket, a bottle of champangne was six dollars (which was a fortune). A young Kevin Kline and Patti LuPone are among the most famous faces (they were courting at the time I believe). You must see this DVD! SUPERB!

This review is of this production, not this play--the play is great; this production, if it were music, would be frequently flat and off key. Some actors seem fine in their roles, and others are jarringly in-apt, if not inept. I want to like this performance, but I keep being distracted by the clunky manners of some these players. Also, the timing and verbal phrasing is often odd, even among the better actors, as if they were speaking lines from Ionesco, or another translated "absurdist" work. Saroyan is closer to lyric poetry than to absurdism. There are casting problems with the James Cagney version that he stars in, too, but he and his sister nail the poetic qualities of their lines--check out that film version from 1948, available for a pittance.

Very entertaining. Great performances, especially by Patti LaPone and Nicholas Surovy. WARNING: Chapter 14 has two quick instances of digital skip. These are on the master and are not a manufacturing defect. They are hardly noticeable and should not affect your enjoyment of this great play.

I am sorry to say that I was very much let down when I first watched this DVD. I think that the story line is just boring. The fact that they filmed it without an audience makes it lose something. The only reason to own this DVD is if you are a huge Patti LuPone fan. But even she is not at her best here. I would pass this one up if I were you.