Razzle-Dazzle (1942)

Release Date:

April 16, 1942

Publisher: 

Harcourt, Brace, and Company

Art Credits:

Frontispiece by Arthur Szyk

Notes:

UK edition published by Faber & Faber in 1945.

First printing was 3500 copies, with a second printing. 

Includes the plays 

Elmer and Lily
The Great American Goof
The Poetic Situation in America
Opera, Opera
Bad Men in the West
The Agony of Little Nations
A Special Announcement
Radio Play
The People with Light Coming Out of Them
There's Something I Got to Tell You
The Ping-Pong Players
The Hungerers
 Hello Out There
Coming Through the Rye
Talking to You
Subway Circus

 

Includes many of Saroyan's earliest plays, including Subway Circus, written in 1935.

The British edition was published by Faber & Faber in 1945. Saroyan had revised and re-ordered the plays included for the British version. 

The release of Razzle-Dazzle was covered widely, including a mention in a column by Hollywood's most notoriously beloved gossip columnist Louella Parsons. 

Reviews of the book were mixed, though British reviews in 1945 were more positive. Alan Bendle of the Manchester Evening News saying, "Those who have the patience to search this odd hotch-potch will have their reward." 

Most of the plays that were included in Razzle-Dazzle had yet to be produced, and a few, such as Hello Out There, The Great American Goof and Opera, Opera, have been frequently produced in various forms.