The Cave Dwellers was published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in 1958 and premiered on Broadway at the Bijou Theatre in October 1957. A group of homeless people have taken shelter in an old condemned theater: the King (a former star actor), the Queen (his partner), the Duke (a former clown and boxer), a young woman with an infant, and others who drift in and out.
The theater is their cave — shelter from the cold — but also their stage: these are people who once performed, who once had audiences, who once mattered. Now they are invisible, surviving on each other’s company and the memory of what they were. But Saroyan refuses to make their situation tragic: they are alive, they are together, they care for each other, and this — in Saroyan’s philosophy — is enough.
The play was not a success — it ran only three weeks — and marked the effective end of Saroyan’s theatrical career. But it demonstrates his essential vision unchanged from 1939: the world is cruel, people suffer, but kindness persists, and the proper human response to adversity is not despair but mutual care.
Collecting The Cave Dwellers
First edition (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1958): Cloth boards with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition with jacket, fine/fine: $30–$70
- Without jacket, very good: $10–$25
Projected values (2026–2036): Modest appreciation.
The Outcasts
The Cave Dwellers (1957) is one of Saroyan’s late plays — set in an abandoned theatre where a group of homeless artists, performers, and dreamers have taken shelter. A king without a kingdom, a queen without subjects, an aging actress, a boxer, and a bear form a makeshift family. The play premiered on Broadway with a cast that included Barry Jones and Wayne Morris. Like most of Saroyan’s later theatre, it received mixed reviews, but its warmth and gentle absurdism have found admirers among subsequent generations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Saroyan still performed? Occasionally — The Time of Your Life is revived periodically, and his shorter plays appear in anthologies. He is more read than performed today, and his reputation rests primarily on his stories and The Human Comedy.