What if you never had to work? What if you could sit around all day, with an unlimited amount of cash readily available and do as you please? What would you do? Where would you go? And how would you spend your money?
The epic play Time of Your Life, written by William Saroyan, answers these questions in the most unorthodox ways. Set over the course of a day in 1939 in a lousy San Francisco waterfront bar, the play focuses on Joe, a rich young man who spends most of his time and wealth sipping champagne, doing small favors for random people and interacting with the bar’s eccentric patrons. A man of unknown fortune, the mysterious Joe philosophizes and devises a plan to aid the bar’s colorful and distressed customers, desperate in their search for more than what their own lives offer.
“This play is one of my favorites,” says Professor Bud Beyer, the play’s director and a former theatre department chair. “I love the period that it takes place in, the late ’30s, and I love the playwright.
“The play has lots of messages,” Beyer says. “It deals with issues relevant today such as immigrant labor, war and loss of innocence. It’s interesting because it also addresses pre-World War II issues. I think the play is a predictor in a way. Although the playwright himself didn’t know that the war was going to happen, he was in tune to the end of the era with the difficulty of the time and the state of the country.”
Playing the role of the charming-yet-elusive Joe is Communication junior David Winkler.
“This is not a play that is immediately accessible and Joe is one of its mouthpieces,” Winkler says. “He calls himself a student of people and of life, and he is one of the audience’s (windows) to the story of the play.”
But Joe’s story is clouded in a mystery that encourages the audience to look deeper.
“I think (Joe’s) an example of the growing number of people who are young, make their money at a young age and don’t know what to do with themselves,” Beyer says. “He has no reason. He kind of just hangs around this bar, sits around and does nothing. But it’s up to the audience to discover what happens to him at the end. Joe’s fate is not clear. They just have to guess for themselves.”
Regardless of the uncertainty, Winkler admits that Joe’s lifestyle is enviable.
“If I could I would most definitely live Joe’s life,” Winkler says. “In doing this play and assuming the role of Joe, I’ve noticed that I’m becoming more and more like him. But there were some things about Joe that were similar to my own self before we began the play.”
Winkler credits Beyer’s talent for casting roles as the reason for such fitting actors.
“Bud has a keen eye for casting people with the same attributes as their characters,” said Winkler. “Every one of us has a specific element, or elements, of their characters.”
Speaking of his bartending alter-ego, Communication senior Michael Rosenblum agrees.
“A lot of people have been telling me that I am exactly like Nick – that I talk like him and share similar personality traits,” says Rosenblum.
Rosenblum not only shares his character’s mannerisms but can also narrate his experiences.
“Nick the bartender is built from scratch, a real blue-collar kind of guy,” Rosenblum says. “He made his place and everything you see in the bar Nick has worked to put there. He runs the lousiest bar in the lousiest town, yet he has to accommodate all different kinds of people, like the streetwalker, the homeless and Joe. He may have his own opinions about the customers but doesn’t really show it. He just expects the expected.”
And rightfully so. The list of quirky and sporadic patrons at Nick’s Saloon includes a piano player, a love-sick dope, a crazed poor man, a wannabe comedian and born dancer, a pinball machine-obsessed guy, a cop, a streetwalker, a married woman and a delusional cowboy.
“Despite whoever comes in, Nick is a nice guy to them,” Rosenblum says. “He’s a gentleman at heart. He’s also a very paternal figure. As a single father, he’s very protective of his daughter and, of course, his bar.”
The set, impressive in its accurate depiction of a saloon in the ’30s, features several vintage items from this era, including a phonograph machine, a pinball machine and a rotary telephone.
“What’s so fascinating and unique about the show is the fact that it is not so much plot-driven as it is really more like a slice of life,” Rosenblum says. “The audience is able to see and witness life happening in front of them and take away from it what they want.”
Time of Your Life will be performed at 8 p.m. May 12, 13, 17, 18, 19 and 20, and at 2 p.m. May 14 and 21 at the Josephine Louis Theatre. Tickets cost $10 for students, $22 for seniors and NU faculty and staff and $25 for the general public. For more information, e-mail [email protected] or call (847) 491-7282.
Medill freshman Taren Fujimoto is a PLAY writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
