William Saroyan Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Nona Balakian

Critical Essay by Nona Balakian

SOURCE: Balakian, Nona. “The Broadway Years.” In The World of William Saroyan, pp. 242-52. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1998.

In the following essay, Balakian describes Saroyan's years in Broadway, focusing on critical reception of his works, Saroyan's reaction to his critics, and brief overviews of his most successful productions.

I began to see! I didn't used to see. The street cars going by had people in them suddenly. There had always been people in street cars, but now they were beautiful people.

—Saroyan, The Beautiful People

“This man Saroyan will be the death of us yet,” was how Brooks Atkinson began his review of Saroyan's third play to be produced on Broadway within thirteen months. Love's Old Sweet Song, called by the playwright “a theatrical entertainment,” had opened at the Plymouth Theatre on 2 May 1940 after a brief out-of-town run the month before. What had puzzled the Times's...
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