Monday, February 07, 2011
The Time of Your Life
Pittsburgh City Paper: "Though Point Park Conservatory Theatre's production of The Time of Your Life has several fine features, it must be said that by evening's end you do feel as if you've become a grave-robber.
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I disagree with this completely. I saw this show on Saturday, and although I wasn't blown away, I enjoyed it. More to the point, it was not the script that had problems, but the production (mainly some weak acting on the part of a few, and some upstaging). I've read this play, see this play before, and I've worked on another Saroyan play. I really resent the attitude of this review. "70 years of dust" -- really? How old is Shakespeare's work? How old is Beckett? Is Waiting for Godot also a "deadly, dreary play" in which nothing happens for two and a half hours? Plenty of things happen, just not in the conventional "plottable" way. As for this being a "talky" play, I would agree. I happen to like talky plays, though I realize that modern America has been programmed to respond to direct action and need constant amusement. I think the talky nature of this play is one of its merits. Saroyan's work is part poetry, all theatre, and that suites it well. This was not the best production I have seen of the first drama to win both the Pulitzer and the Drama Critics Circle Award, but not because of any flaws in the script. And despite the few issues I took with some staging and acting choices, I found most of the actors to be wonderfully present, both in the time of 1939 and 2011.
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