This Is Our Youth

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THIS IS OUR YOUTH

Photo: Brigitte Lacombe

Cititour.com Review
Savvy audiences may initially worry that Kenneth Lonergan’s scabrously funny play “This Is Our Youth,” now receiving a long-overdue Broadway mounting at the Cort Theatre, will seem dated. After all, the play was not only first produced Off-Broadway in 1996, but the piece is actually set in 1982 on New York’s Upper West Side. Well, like FDR said about fear. As it turns out, those disaffected, economically privileged teenagers of three decades past are much the same as today’s troubled adolescents. Okay, maybe they’re not overdosing from speedballs (or maybe they are), maybe they’re not stealing $15,000 from their unhappy dads (or maybe they are) – but they’re still grappling with issues of low self-esteem, uncertain identity and parental neglect.

That said, Anna D. Shapiro’s accomplished yet imperfect production of this seminal work, first seen this summer at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater, doesn’t quite make Longergan’s play as consequential as it could be. In some ways, that’s due to the script: “This Is Our Youth” not only often comes off like David Mamet for teenagers, a play where the shock value often overwhelms the substance, but for all of the show’s great lines and comic bits of business, 2 ½ hours is rather too long to spend with the less-than-loveable trio of characters who traipse in and out of an Upper West Side studio apartment (believably designed by Todd Rosenthal).

There’s perpetually lost boy Warren Straub (Michael Cera), who has absconded with his dad’s money after being thrown out of the house and now has second thoughts about his action; his “best friend,” the swaggering, foul-mouthed, yet surprisingly fragile local drug dealer Dennis Ziegler (Kieran Culkin), and Jessica Goldman (Tavi Gevinson), an argumentative if rather confused young woman who ends up forging an unlikely romance with Warren. Their struggle to connect, with each other and the world around them, is often touching and frequently hilarious.

But in this outing, many of the longer interchanges between Warren and Jessica lack the necessary punch to keep our attention, due to the two actors’ shaky stage technique. Neither Cera nor Gevinson have really mastered the art of modulating their voices, and their performances both lack the multidimensionality that more experienced stage professionals might have brought to their roles.

Nonetheless, Cera (best known for such films as “Superbad” and “Juno”) brings a real sense of earnestness and vulnerability to his portrayal of Warren, who has grown so accustomed to abuse from everyone in his circle he can’t even fathom tenderness or affection when it’s present. You hope that Warren grows up to overcome all his obstacles (even if you never really believe it).

Gevinson, who gained fame as a 15-year-old for her fashion website “Rookie,” simply doesn’t have the right chops for such a pivotal part. Nonetheless, she is unquestionably extremely committed to breathing as much life as she can into Jessica, who (much like the women in Mamet’s plays) too often comes off as a plot device rather than a flesh-and-blood character.

Oddly, as obnoxious and irritating as Dennis be, one misses both the character and the surprisingly dynamic Culkin during his lengthy absences from the action. He is the true life force of the play, even if in real life, you might not want to spend five minutes with him. Ah, youth.
By Brian Scott Lipton


Visit the Site
http://thisisouryouthbroadway.com

Cast
Michael Cera, Kieran Culkin, Tavi Gevinson

Open/Close Dates
Opening 9/11/2014
Closing 1/4/2015

Preview Open/ Preview Close Dates
Preview Opening 8/18/2014
Closing Open-ended

Box Office
212-239-6200

Theatre Info
James Earl Jones Theatre
138 West 48th Street
New York, NY 10036
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