Play shows decay of family's
life
By Anna Herkamp
Staff
Writer
A set of blue lights illuminate a stage and set
decorated with a backdrop of an industrial New York City neighborhood.
The stage contains a restaurant booth to the right and a bar to the
left.
The set is complete for "Side Man," the
story of how a family grew up and ultimately disintegrated in the wake
of the mid-20th century, a time of change for American society, symbolized
by the decay of the jazz age as rock ‘n’ roll takes over the
music scene.
The play is narrated by the main character, Clifford,
played by Alex Aschinger, a senior in the School of Liberal Arts. Clifford
is the son of a jazz musician who made his living playing trumpet in
clubs in New York City.
Clifford is torn between his two parents —
Terry, played by Mary Fischer, a sophomore in the School of Liberal
Arts, a woman beaten down with lost hopes and defeated dreams of finding
love in Gene, Martin Swoverland, a senior in the School of Liberal Arts,
Clifford’s father.
The plot follows the story of how Gene and Terry
meet and fell in love. Over a span of 30 years, we see how Gene unwittingly
gets pulled into marriage by Terry, and how they eventually get married
and have a child.
The icing on the cake of the play would have to
be the musicians in Gene’s band: Al, Eddie Duran, a graduate student,
Jonesy, Geoffery Pard, a senior in the School of Liberal Arts, and Ziggy,
Thomas Winget, a junior in the School of Liberal Arts.
Also in the cast is Patsy, Robyn Senchak, a senior
in the School of Liberal Arts, the waitress and friend of the family.
By the time Clifford is born, the entire relationship
between his parents has fallen apart and he is forced to split his loyalty
between his legendary trumpet-playing father, and his alcoholic, cigarette-smoking
mother.
The plot is centered on the family and how it struggles
to survive the decay of jazz music in the 20th century. Though other
job opportunities arise, Gene, the main breadwinner of the family, refuses
to leave New York, insisting that the work will always be in the city.
Over the years, Terry tires of waiting for Gene
to "make it" in the business and becomes aggravated with how
he never seems to be able to do anything right.
Clifford, always caught in the middle of their
fights, is the classic example of a child brought up in a broken home.
Every night, Clifford tries to assuage the bitterness his mother has
for Gene, and every night he is forced to clean up the mess they make.
Whether saving his mother from jumping out the
window in a suicide attempt, or cleaning up a plate of food she throws
on the living room rug, Clifford is always stuck between his two parents,
making up for the grown-ups that are never really there.
Though the writing could use a little work, the
cast of characters is what saves the play from falling apart. Complete
with New York accents, the cast flawlessly carries the show through
two hours to its completion and leaves the audience asking why it had
to end where it did.
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