‘This is Our Youth’ great start to fall season

INSTANT ATTRACTION: Tavi Gevinson & Michael Cera. Photo: Brigitte Lacombe

By David NouNou

September is the month when children go back to school and critics go back to review Broadway shows. For most children and critics, this could be an ominous time. However, this time the first day of school (or from a critic’s standpoint, the first show of the new fall 2014 season), This is Our Youth is a cause for rejoicing for two reasons. The first being relishing a good show, and the second seeing fresh newcomers take to the Broadway stage and have actual stage presence and charisma. For me, it’s always a pleasure to see actors/celebrities from other mediums making their Broadway debuts and leaving lasting impressions.

Set in March 1982 in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, we meet the loner/loser Warren Straub (Michael Cera), who has just been thrown out of his father’s house for constantly smoking weed there and just happens to steal $15,000.00 on his way out from his dad’s attaché case. Being midnight and having nowhere else to go, Warren shows up at his best friend and tormentor’s home Dennis Ziegler, (Kieran Culkin). Dennis is an entrepreneur in the art of the deal in procuring and selling drugs to his friends and has made a lucrative life for himself, and Dennis also has his own apartment that his rich family pays for as long as he stays away. The third person is Jessica Goldman (Tavi Gevinson), who Warren likes a lot. Naturally they all have excess baggage, and are not particularly likeable characters if you knew any of them personally, and all have hidden secrets, which get revealed as the show progresses.

This is Our Youth was first done as an Off-Broadway show in 1996. As a matter of fact it is Mr. Lonergan’s first foray on Broadway. Both show and playwright are making their Broadway debuts. Also making his Broadway debut is Michael Cera, known as a movie star for his roles in Juno, Superbad, and This Is the End, plus the TV show “Arrested Development”; Mr. Cera has always managed to supply his own brand of geekyness and awkwardness, but he does it with flare. In This is Our Youth, he takes this awkwardness to new heights that are heartfelt as well as heartbreaking. He is the misfit of the 1980s era and plays it to perfection. Even at a happy moment with a girl, he is still the sad sack because you know something will go wrong.

Having seen Kieran Culkin in After Ashley and The Starry Messenger, I knew he is a deft and talented actor;seeing him in an aggressive role is a refreshing part for him. His Dennis is full of cockiness and has mastered the art of the deal, but in the end he will find a way to screw it up because he hasn’t learned to harness his talents for the long haul, just long enough for the next dream ahead.

Tavi Gevinson is an enjoyable young actress but she still has to find her stage legs. She has the angst and frustration of her character but has to tone her down a bit. She can come across as too shrill at times. Director Anna D. Shapiro has managed to take this small show and give it the proper dimensions to make it work on the big stage. Todd Rosenthal’s tenement building background is a vision of art.

What makes This is Our Youth timeless is that it resonates in every decade Whether it’s the 80s, 90s or even the 2010s, the same loners and losers still exist. The dropouts exist in every decade, the only difference is in the 80s they either lived with a parent or lived alone in their own apartment. The only thing that has changed in the 2010s is that they now live as three roommates to make it more cost effective to share the rent.

BEST FRIENDS: Kieran Culkin & Michael Cera in ‘This Is Our Youth.’ Photo: Brigitte Lacombe

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published September 14, 2014
Reviewed at press performance September 13, 2014