Hello Out There!

'Hello, out there!', is a one act paly by William Saroyan, written early in August 1941. The play is only about twenty pages long, but it sure packs a punch within those pages.

Plot

• The story takes place in a small Texas jail. Throughout most of the play, there are only two characters, Photo-finish and Emily, both are only referred to by Saroyan as A Young Man and A Girl. This is not Saroyan's usual style. it is very symbolic. He actually condemned the play as being to dark, because he wrote it drunk one night in a hotel room!

Stage History

• The play was first performed at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara on 10th of September, as the curtain raiser to George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple. and after that has been performed in many languages around the world, where its two characters -despite their chronological differences- could have reflected themselves in different cultures successfully. They have lived through many actors playing them. Al Pacino playing Young Man as his first Broadway appearance on stage (directed by Charles Laughton, in 1963).