Townie: Noun. A permanent inhabitant of a town or suburb, as distinguished from a member of another group (such as the academic community, rock stars or immigrants).

Examples: Jeff, Tim, Buff, et al.

“Jeff is trapped by the microcosm he lives in,” Communication senior Matt Carlson said of his character, Jeff, in Arts Alliance’s fall mainstage, “subUrbia.” “High school was the best years of his life, and he doesn’t really know how to leave.”

Set behind a Pakistani-owned convenience store in Burnfield — Anytown, USA — “subUrbia” follows the story of a group of friends, a hodgepodge of borderline alcoholics, wannabe artists, dreamers and community college students. These intelligent and idealistic 20-somethings are too comfortable in the slacker, skater surroundings of their local hangout to move on with their lives, and are too disillusioned with the world outside their suburb to put down the bottle.

“The show is primarily about trying to find identity,” said director Claire DePalma, a Communication junior. “All of these characters, in one way or another, are struggling with who they are and what they stand for.”

Jeff’s long-time girlfriend Sooze (played by Communication junior Allison Weintraub) desires to escape Burnfield and become an artist.

“She has a sense of doubt (about herself), yet a strong desire to have a voice and make herself heard,” Weintraub said. “She has lots of different ideas but nothing new to say.”

Sooze, who expresses her beliefs about sexual abuse, racism and woman’s rights through her art, wants to find a way to bring meaning to her life and longs to move to New York City.

“She is angry with the people she’s known all her life,” Weintraub said. “(Sooze has) a lot of conflicts with how she’s been raised in the town where her friends just drink and smoke and sit on the sidewalk and do nothing.”

And do they ever drink.

Carlson said his character drinks four to five Bud Lights and four shots of Jack Daniels — and he’s the lightweight in the play.

Communication junior Thomas Higgins said the amount of water he drinks during the show helps him with his hyperactive character Buff. Because Higgins is unable to go to the bathroom between every act, Buff becomes even more bouncy and antsy.

“We were thinking about doing a rehearsal with real drinking,” Higgins joked. “I’m sure I would have passed out by act three.”

Communication junior Zachary Gilford, who plays Tim, an Air Force dropout turned apathetic alcoholic, said he and the other actors have to keep in mind their characters are actually drinking alcohol and are getting drunker and drunker as the show progresses.

Gilford, whose character drinks about 20 beers and a 40, spends the first half hour before the show officially starts guzzling beers on the stage. He said his presence while the audience enters gives the audience the immediate impression that all Tim does with his life is sit outside the store and drink.

“Tim has reached the point where he asks, ‘What’s the point in doing anything anymore?'” Gilford said. “He and his friends just sit here and waste their lives.”

Although the audience may not like all the characters, Gilford said they can relate to all of them.

DePalma said she and her actors worked hard at drawing out both likable and unlikable attributes from the characters to make them human.

“This group of friends could be your group of friends,” DePalma said. “The individual makeup (of each character) is so diverse, and together they form a kind of quirky group dynamic that feels very real to me.

“To a certain degree, the characters are archetypical, and because of that we relate to them so easily — ‘I know that guy or that girl!'”

Weintraub said that beyond knowing the characters in “subUrbia,” the audience shares similar experiences and goals.

“Many people in this day and age are not sure what to do with their lives,” Weintraub said. “We’re all trying to find something that speaks to us and has meaning.”

It is this search for substance that originally drew DePalma to the script.

“It’s really great to do a play where the characters are your own age, and the topic is timeless and timely simultaneously,” DePalma said.

Although the plot takes place in 1994, DePalma said the emphasis on an emerging global culture and racial awareness resounds strongly after Sept. 11.

“Jeff rants about how America goes into other countries and fucks them up while pretending to be a great moral force,” DePalma said. “We see that general ideology become a specific reality when Tim becomes more aggressive with outsiders who are actually citizens.”

These outsiders are the Pakistani store owners, Norman (Communication junior Jeremy Cohen) and his sister.

Cohen said it’s important that the audience feels sympathetic toward Norman, but viewers will probably identify more with Jeff and his friends.

“The sense of teenage angst is universal,” he said. “All people (our age) have a sense of wanting to shatter the world.”

Carlson said he is glad to be involved in a play that has “an appropriate voice” for today’s audience.

“So much of what we do in the theater is classical works,” Carlson said. “They’re good, but they don’t have a meaning. ‘subUrbia’ speaks to our generation in a way that a lot of theater doesn’t.” nyou