Kenneth Lonergan’s This is Our Youth is billed as a comedy, but the premise is a long way from funny. The plot centers on a trio of alienated young adults in Reagan-era 1982. Warren Straub (Michael Cera) has been thrown out of his house by his father, an abusive lingerie magnate with criminal ties. Before he leaves, Warren steals $15,000 from his father’s bedroom. He then heads over to the Upper West Side studio apartment of his friend, Dennis Ziegler (Kieran Culkin). Dennis makes it very clear that he doesn’t want Warren around, and, as it turns out, no one else wants Warren, either.
When Warren reveals his stash of money, Dennis immediately decides to buy drugs, with the idea of using some, and selling the rest for profit. Warren will then be able to return his father’s money and not risk further abuse. Warren insists that when Dennis’s girlfriend comes over to join the party, she must bring Jessica Goldman (Tavi Gevinson); Warren has a crush on Jessica and hopes he’ll be able to convince her to go to bed with him. Toward this end, he advises Dennis to buy not just drugs but also champagne.
The play seems to be largely autobiographical. The characters are all Jewish; Lonergan is considered Jewish in the faith, because his mother is Jewish. Lonergan is in his early 50s. His characters are in their late teens in 1982. How much of the rest of the story the author has taken from his own life, we may never know. The wealthy families have largely rejected their sons; Dennis’s agree to pay for his apartment so they won’t have to deal with him directly. Warren’s family has been shattered by the murder of his sister by her abusive boyfriend. Jessica is going to school and still living with a mother who cares about her, but obviously the 18-year-old has a casual attitude about drugs and sex. That the play gets laughs is largely due to the fine tuning of comic timing by director Anna D. Shapiro. Michael Cera steals the show with his practiced deadpan and well-honed sense of when to pop a line of dialogue, and when to understate. He’s loose limbed and so wired he seems to be in perpetual motion. Culkin is catlike in his moves and in noticeably excellent physical condition. His Dennis is cruel, obsessed, and persuasive by turns, and his mind is always working on the next big score. Gevinson is lovely, but as a newcomer, she’s not yet a match for the vets with whom she’s working; her speech seems forced.
This Is Our Youth was first produced Off-Broadway at the Intar Theater in 1996. The New Group production lasted 22 nights and featured an outstanding performance by the then largely unknown Mark Ruffalo. Since that time, the play has been staged in New York, London, Sydney, and Melbourne. This production began at the Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago this summer. Like the play, the characters have been around. The question is asked: who will they be when they grow up? But more importantly, will these lost boys ever grow up? Perhaps Lonergan should consider a present-day sequel.
