The Time of Your Life Study Guide

This free study guide to William Saroyan’s The Time of Your Life explores the play’s background, plot, characters, San Francisco setting, major themes, literary style, and production history for teachers and students.

Background

William Saroyan’s The Time of Your Life was first performed in 1939 at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, Conn. The initial engagement was something of a disaster, and the two-week run in Boston was not much better, though Saroyan and Eddie Dowling, along with the rest of the company, re-tooled the show, eventually turning it into one of the best-reviewed shows on Broadway when it debuted at the Booth Theatre on October 25^th, 1939.

The play was written in New York’s Great Northern Hotel over six days in May of 1939, just as Saroyan’s first play, My Heart’s in the Highlands, had closed on Broadway. Critic George Jean Nathan had encouraged him to take on a new play, and arranged for him to meet Eddie Dowling, a popular actor who also directed and produced plays. Dowling had admired Saroyan’s work on My Heart’s in the Highlands and agreed to purchase the rights, eventually bringing the Theatre Guild in to produce the show.

The play was a massive hit critically, winning both the New York Drama Critics Circle award and the Pulitzer Prize for theatre, though Saroyan declined the latter. The show had two runs on Broadway between 1939 and 1941.

The Time of Your Life would go on to become Saroyan’s best-known play, being revived several times, and becoming a film starring James Cagney in 1949. The iconic role of Joe has been played by major figures in the history of American theatre, such as Henry Fonda, Franchot Tone, and Jackie Gleason, and other roles in the play have opened up doors for the likes of Patti LuPone, Gloria Vanderbilt, William Bendix, Celeste Holm, Gene Kelly, and Saroyan’s cousin Ross Bagdasarian.

The Plot

Joe is a regular at Nick's Pacific Street Saloon, Restaurant and Entertainment Palace, in San Francisco. He has money and he likes to spend it in unusual ways, usually doing small favors for people who enter his orbit. His friend and errand boy, Tom. In October of 1939, Joe is at Nick’s, drinking champagne and sending Tom on a series of unlikely tasks, such as buying several toys from a local department store. The saloon fills with unlikely characters, including Kitty Duval, a sex worker who claims to have been a Burlesque star. Joe takes her into his company and works to set her up with Tom, who has an innocent crush on her. A corrupt police officer of the Vice squad, Blick, appears to extort Nick and hassle several of the bar’s patrons. This includes forcing Kitty to dance and sing like she had in the Burlesque. After humiliating her and forcing her to begin a striptease in front of the entire bar, Blick beats one of the patrons. An old-timer who was furious at the way Blick treated Kitty follows him out when Blick leaves the bar, and shoots him, throwing the gun into the bay on his way back.

The Characters

Joe

Joe is often described as a loafer, though he is considerably more complicated than that. He has somehow acquired a good deal of money, and he has decided to use it to provide escape and assistance to those around him. He has a long-standing relationship with Tom, who he once nursed through the flu, and has begun to use him to run small errands for him around town while Joe enjoys champagne at his table at Nick’s. He befriends many of those at the bar, and learns what he can of their stories.

Nick appears to believe that the ultimate goal of life is to live life to the fullest, and since he can make that happen with his money, he happily, and somewhat mysteriously, does so.

Joe has Tom acquire a gun for him, and Kit Carson, another patron, shows him how to use it. The gun actually doesn’t work when he attempts to kill Blick, having failed to fire, which boggles Joe.

Many have interpreted Joe as Saroyan’s view of his own best self. When he was flush with money, he often spent lavishly on himself and his friends, funding many benders at saloons not unlike Nick’s.

Joe can be played a number of ways, though many choose to focus on his generosity. Some directors believe that the best method for presenting Joe is as a series of reactions to each character he encounters, sometimes going as far as to seem contradictory when taken in totality. This actually would be supported by Saroyan’s complicated view of people in general.

Tom

Tom is Joe’s friend and works for him doing random tasks that Joe assigns him. He is a good-hearted, though somewhat simple, man. He is gently infatuated with Kitty, and Joe encourages him.

Tom is shown as both a great admirer of Joe’s as well as somewhat confused by him. Joe treats Tom almost as a younger brother, and at other times almost father.

Tom wants to take Kitty away and give her a better life. Tom can’t do so on his own, but Joe is happy to help, even going so far as to take the couple on a drive down the coast in a rented car.

It is Tom and Kitty’s relationship that forms much of the plot movement, which is unusual as other playwrights would tend towards making the main character, undoubtedly Joe in this case, into the prime mover of the plot.

Tom is often portrayed as somewhat pressed between his own desires and what seems to be duty to Joe. An actor must decide when to turn from one to the other, and that is often based on how Kitty is played.

Kitty Duval

Kitty was born Katerina Kornovsky and grew up poor. She claims to have been a Burlesque dancer prior to coming to San Francisco and had toured the world. This turns out to be a lie, as she’s been involved in sex work for her adult life. She is the target of affection from Tom, and finds him gentle, kind, and caring when most others have not treated her so. She questions her own worth, but Joe and Tom work to show her her own value.

Blick treats her terribly, at least partly because of his job as a Vice Squad police officer, though considering how other police officers are portrayed in the play, there is clearly more. When she is forced into singing and dancing for Blick, Kitty is clearly not of the caliber that would have performed in Burlesque. Blick then demands that she strip on the stage of the bar as a way to humiliate her. This ends when others in the bar stand up to Blick, and Tom whisks her off to San Diego, presumably for a better life.

Kitty can be played as a put-upon character, or as a victim of circumstance, or as something of a hardened soul. One famous interpretation, played out by Patti LuPone in the 1970s, was deeply melancholy, at times seemingly edging towards suicidal. Her relationship with Tom is nearly defined completely by an exchange with Joe in which she reveals her birth name. This speech reveals how she feels about Tom and about her role in life, and that flavors the entire show.

Blick

Blick is the primary villain of the play. He is a police officer of the Vice Squad, in charge of policing the city for drugs, prostitution, gambling, and other vices. He is presented as a stern character, and one that treats people far worse than those he considers to be low-lifes and criminals. He behaves extra-legally, knowing that he can not be held accountable for his actions because he is a police officer.

Blick’s presentation in the play is usually very cold. He is usually interpreted as emotion-less and vile. He is clearly violent and hateful, though he justifies his treatment of others as them breaking laws or societal norms while he defends the status quo.

Nick

Nick is the owner of Nick's Pacific Street Saloon, Restaurant, and Entertainment Palace and the primary bartender. He is presented as good-natured, accepting the eccentricities of the patrons of the saloon. He seems to simply go about his daily life without being particularly bothered by the behavior of his regulars, though he is bothered by Blick, who seeks to extort him for allowing Kitty and other sex workers to use the bar.

In his own way, he is much like Joe. He is providing the location for them to explore their lives in comfort, which Blick desanctifies with his entry. He employs people to sing and perform for his regulars, providing for them in a different way than Joe does. During the Depression, any sort of job was a welcome relief.

Some choose to play Nick as simply drifting, trying to keep the place open and drinks being served. At times, it appears he has been written as a fly on the wall, though most make him a far more active participant in the goings-on.

Kit Carson

Kit Carson, who introduces himself as Murphy but looks like the legendary mountain man is an old-timer who has a story for every situation. He claims to have been an old Indian fighter, though it appears that Saroyan wants to make the audience think that none of his stories are true. He stands up for Kitty and the rest of those who inhabit Nick’s by shooting Blick at the end of the play after Joe’s gun doesn’t work.

Kit Carson is considered one of the best, and most memorable roles in the play. The ability to make sure outrageous claims and then finish the entire play, providing the entire closure, is the kind of role many actors adore. Most actors find this a prime opportunity to go a bit broad with actions and accents.

McCarthy

McCarthy is a longshoreman, a worker who primarily loads and unloads ships. San Francisco was one of the world’s premier shipping centers in the 1930s, so there would have been many at that time. He has also studied and is incredibly philosophical. He is on the side of the common man, but speaks of things in a very high-minded way.

Some have pointed to Saroyan’s writing of McCarthy as a way for him to address Socialist ideas without over-intellectualizing them. McCarthy, most certainly an intellectual, is not at all bothered by being a longshoreman. This sort of contradiction is one of Saroyan’s hallmarks, as he presents these kinds of characters in several of his works.

Dudley R. Bostwick

One of the more interesting minor characters in the play, Dudley is constantly using the phone trying to find love. He has a girl in mind, but any will do as he is only interested in being in love, and the target of that love is far less important. Saroyan had written about several characters like this early in his career, including in one of his first stories: The Story of a Man Who Wanted to Be In Love.

Krupp

Krupp is a police officer who is friends with McCarthy. He is somewhat slow-witted, but he is also a good-natured man. McCarthy tries to get him to give up being a police officer. Krupp is confused as to why the world is full of people who seem to want to make it worse.

Krupp is an interesting character. Saroyan seldom portrays police officers very positively, but Krupp is shown if not in an entirely positive light, he is at least shown as not wanting to do harm or increase people’s suffering.

Willie

Willie is obsessed with the pinball machine at Nick’s, and insists that he can master it. As the play progresses, he manages to beat the machine, launching it into a display of flags and bells ringing.

This role, played by the likes of Ross Baghdasarian and Richard Erdman, almost requires an actor to beam positivity and stick-to-it-tiveness. Much of Saroyan’s theme of hopefulness can be seen in the role of Willy.

The Setting

The setting of the piece is Nick's Pacific Street Saloon, Restaurant and Entertainment Palace. It’s owned by Nick, and is referred to as a ‘honky tonk’ kind of bar. It is presented as a place that collects the unusual and eccentric.

Saroyan based Nick’s on an actual saloon, Izzy Gomez’s. Izzy’s was a saloon that was a part of San Francisco’s infamous Barbary Coast, known for its alcohol, gambling, and prostitution. While the rise of Prohibition closed most bars and saloons in America, Izzy’s remained open, openly flaunting the law.

The San Francisco that Saroyan wrote about was the seedier side of the city, populated by the kinds of people who were not of polite society. When he does write about upper-class characters, it is either with derision or as a counterpoint to the lower-class characters.

Sets and props for The Time of Your Life play a key role in many ways. The idea of the tables and seating serving as a differentiator of roles, class, and purpose is one that is often explored. The bar is likely the most important element of the setting, and while a minimalist presentation without it is possible, this tends to be a rare choice.

Themes

The Pursuit of Happiness

Saroyan delivered a story that looks at several different ways in which characters strived to achieve happiness, even if that happiness was not what many would consider to be normal. Willie continually strives to beat the pinball machine, and his dedication to beating it pays off as he eventually manages to do it. Dudley R. Bostwick is looking for love, and he continually uses the phone to chase that goal. The characters More than one character is attempting to find work at Nick’s as entertainers.

Perhaps the most obvious character to the theme of the pursuit of happiness is Joe. With far more money than most would have had at that point in the Great Depression, he says he is still looking for real happiness. He uses his money to help others reach their goals, or at least find some comfort and escape.

Societal Status

The characters who inhabit Nick’s come from several different social classes. Some would be considered to have high social status, such as the rich couple who come to Nick’s to enjoy the ‘Honky Tonk’’ atmosphere, or the police officers, Krupp and Blick. Others would be considered of lower classes, such as Kitty, a sex worker, or McCarthy, the longshoreman. These characters are often presented in ways that contradict their station in society.

Joe is an interesting character when viewed through the lens of representing social class status. Joe is a man with money, which in the 1930s would certainly have put him in a higher social position than most. We are never told how he made his money, but it is implied that it was through honest work. We sometimes assume that those who have no visible means of supporting themselves earned their money through illicit means, such as gambling or organized crime. Without knowing exactly how he gained his money, we can only judge any potential societal class by the actions that we see, and that includes drinking champagne, which is usually an activity reserved for those who are of high social classes.

The villain in the piece is Blick. Blick, as a police officer, occupies a position that is often honored and valued by society, but Saroyan has him be coarse and abusive in his position. That is at least partly a comment on the idea that power corrupts those who have it.

Just Desserts

Many of the elements of The Time of Your Life feature the characters getting what they deserve without regard to their position or station in life. Kitty Duval finds love with Tom. It’s something she has always wanted, and though she must go through trials to get there, in the end it comes to her. Conversely, Blick is a cop who has abused his position and is killed at the end for his ill treatment of Kitty Duval. Kit Carson has claimed to be a man who has been in scrapes and even killed, and in the end, whether or not any of the other stories of his were true, he tells a final story that is undoubtedly true because we see the results of his actions.

Saroyan is known for his optimistic view of the world. His writing of stories like The Time of Your Life is often referred to as Saroyanesque for the general sense that things will work out for the best, and that is clearly true in the play.

Style

The Time of Your Life is a fascinating play for a number of reasons. There are a large number of characters that interact in a variety of ways with each other and their environment. Saroyan has some of them really only interact with unseen characters, and a fair bit of the ‘action’ of the play, including the shooting of Blick, takes place out of the sight of the audience.

Saroyan was known for the rhythm of his prose, and that still exists in many of the exchanges between his characters. There are a significant number of monologues in the piece, and these seem to have been used as a way to bring us the interior thoughts of the speaker.

This is a comedy, and though today some of the humor may not come through. While Saroyan seems to attempt to write ‘evergreen’ comedy, it evolves quickly. Often, theatre companies play The Time of Your Life more as a period showpiece than as a comedy because it is more relatable to a younger crowd, though with enough textual research, the comedy can be found and made good use of.