Overview

Where but in Saroyan can you expect to find humor of such a sad kind, coming like laughter through tears? Or characters that disarm you with such honesty and simpleheartedness? DON'T GO AWAY MAD lives up to your every expectation; it is Saroyan at his human best. Herein are six men of the type you meet every day and never recognize: the lowly ones, unloved and unknown. They have been withdrawn from the world, and now sit in the silence of a hospital to await and suffer death. The play is a reflection on their pitifully ernest attempt to find in death the purpose and succor they could not find in life, so that they may not "go away mad."