Stage Direction

Saroyan is very explicit with the stage direction in this play. This may be because he was disappointed in the production and direction of his first play, My Heart's in the Highlands. Nearly every character has an extensive description of his or her clothes, weaknesses and strengths of character, movements, and place in society. For example, when describing Willie, the marble game player, Saroyan goes so far as to say that the young man is "the last of the American pioneers, with nothing more to fight but the machine, with no other rewards than lights going on and off." In this case, he raises Willie above being a mere young man in front of a game; Willie evokes the history of a nation and a people.

Saroyan even begins the play with a paragraph stating the play's underlying philosophy, just in case the reader is unclear about...