William Saroyan

Abstract

In Saroyan the professional theatre finds a new type of American dramatist: born in, his mind formed by, California, where many of his plays are set. Writers considered so far, including Anderson, born in the midwest, and Hellman, born in the south, are identifiable with the upper eastern seaboard, often with literary and dramatic roots beyond the Atlantic Ocean. Even when they foray into California — Kaufman and Hart’s Once in a Lifetime, for instance, or Odets’ The Big Knife (1949) — the sensibilities that inform their plays remain on the east coast. Saroyan’s temperament is that of the freewheeling Californian individualist, an American writ large. Road maps of the state of California proclaim it to be the ‘Land of Superlatives’, a word that fits the outlook and literary landscape of many California writers, including Saroyan. Marked by excess, his tales are tall, his personal and literary boundaries unrestricted.