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Peer Reviews

William Saroyan's Time of Your Life

Reviewed by Keith Waits

Entire contents are copyright © 2007, Keith Waits. All rights reserved.

Walden Theatre opened its 32nd season with a production of William Saroyan's Time of Your Life that well characterizes the strengths and pleasures of the company's work. This was my first introduction to Mr. Saroyan, and I honestly was not overwhelmed by the play itself. It struck me as a modest piece of work that, containing a variety of good bits and pieces, never manages to coalesce and hold together the way a great play should. The story follows a group of Depression-era characters populating a seedy waterfront bar through the better part of a day, with a few of them experiencing changes in their circumstance, and others remaining trapped in their sorry existence.

But the able cast, led by Mr. Volz, made the most of the good bits, with one or two standouts that really gave the audience their money's worth. Ben Park nearly stole the whole show as Kit Carson, mining the script for every laugh while never overplaying a character that invites scenery-chewing. David Laws was his equal, effectively underplaying the central figure of Joe, providing the sure, authoritative presence that grounds the play. Jacob Lyle was uncannily good as Nick, the owner of the bar, capturing the essence of the character like a supporting player in a vintage Warner Brothers movie of the 1930's. As Kitty Duval, a sad and forlorn prostitute, Madeline Marchal registered an appropriate amount of heartbreak.

The remainder of the cast was uniformly good, but I would mention Elliot Cornett's longshoreman and Ali Burch's Society Lady as standouts, and Sami Siegwald made her small, comic scene of multiple toasts at the bar very memorable.

The costumes were evocative of the period but made me realize that many productions set in the early half of the last century seem to make the same mistake: rendering the world as musty and dull, as if we only discovered color after 1950. It was refreshing to see clothes that successfully capture the feeling of a time without being burdened by a thick layer of sepia-toned dust. The scenery worked in the same way, but was a little duller in its palette, and that seemed to provide a visual balance that pulled the look of the production into harmony.

William Saroyan's Time of Your Life
Directed by Alec Volz
Walden Theatre

Sept. 20-29, 2007

1123 Payne Street
Louisville, KY 40204
Phone: (502) 589-0084
www.waldentheatre.org

Posted Sept. 24, 2007