GREAT PERFORMANCES: THEATER IN AMERICA: THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE (TV)
Summary
One in this series of dramatic arts productions. This installment features a two-act performance of William Saroyan's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1939 play "The Time of Your Life." Host Hal Holbrook opens by explaining that the actors in the production are all members of John Houseman's traveling repertory troupe, the Acting Company. The play itself begins with a title card, establishing the place and time: San Francisco, 1939. The setting is a dive bar called Nick's Pacific Street Saloon, Restaurant, and Entertainment Palace. A motley cast of characters engage throughout the play in philosophical debates and pontificate about their troubled lives. Joe is an independently wealthy alcoholic who spends his days and nights guzzling champagne by the bottle, while Tom is Joe's lackey; he always seems to be stepping out to fetch Joe some chewing gum. Harry and Wesley are two young vagabonds who come to Nick's bar looking for work and immediately are instituted as the resident dancer and piano player, respectively. Kit Carson is an older hobo who sits in the bar drinking the last few sips of abandoned cocktails while spinning yarns about his remarkable past. Kitty Duval is a prostitute who yearns for a quiet life in the suburbs and spins stories about her imaginary life as a veteran of Burlesque. All of the characters are routinely harassed by a police officer named Blick, who disdains the barflies for their blue-collar lifestyles -- but is actually much more like them then he realizes. As violence escalates in the saloon, Blick brings out both the best and the worst in the denizens of Nick's.
Cataloging of this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 2000.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS
- DATE: March 10, 1976
- RUNNING TIME: 1:57:31
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:58704
- GENRE: Drama
- SUBJECT HEADING: Drama
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1974-1979
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Jac Venza … Executive Producer
- Lindsay Law … Producer
- Phylis Geller … Associate Producer
- Jack O'Brien … Director
- Kirk Browning … Director
- William Saroyan … Writer
- Hal Halbrook … Host
- Benjamin Hendrickson … Cast, Nick
- Richard Ooms … Cast, Arab
- Nicolas Surovy … Cast, Joe
- Sam Tsoutsouvas … Cast, Willie
- Elaine Hausman … Cast, Newsboy
- Michael Tolaydo … Cast, Drunkard
- Norman Snow … Cast, Tom
- Patti LuPone … Cast, Kitty Duval
- Robert Bacigalupi … Cast, Dudley
- Brooks Baldwin … Cast, Harry
- Gerald Gutierrez … Cast, Wesley
- Glynis Bell … Cast, Lorene and Killer's Sidekick
- J.W. Harper … Cast, Blick
- Mary Lou Rosato … Cast, Mary L.
- Roy K. Stevens … Cast, Krupp
- Kevin Kline … Cast, McCarthy
- David Schramm … Cast, Kit Carson
- Cynthia Dickson … Cast, Killer
- Anderson Matthews … Cast, Sailor
- Sandra Halperin … Cast, Elsie
- Mary-Joan Negro … Cast, Society Lady
- Peter Dvorsky … Cast, Society Man