Like, Whatever
This Is Our Youth
;) (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION) |
Just over 10 years ago, This Is Our Youth was an off-Broadway hit, and a springboard for the careers of playwright Kenneth Lonergan and actor Mark Ruffalo. Lonergan's three-hander about a pair of disaffected rich boys in Manhattan who sample drugs, dealing and sex in a doomed search for fulfillment, seemed rather daring. His ability to capture the awkward patois of contemporary kid-speak was funny and fresh.
What a difference a decade makes! Now, Lonergan's play seems by turns a tepid stoner comedy and an overreaching sociological parable for Reagan-era excesses. The charms of Youth lasted but a moment.
I saw the show in its off-Broadway incarnation, which was terrific. But even then, I sensed that the production gave the script a lot of help — specifically, expert direction that punched up the comic moments and etched the mood changes with pinpoint precision, and actors who brought their own charisma and individuality to what fundamentally are underdeveloped characters. (The doe-eyed, adorable Ruffalo could make the audience fall in love with him merely by putting his hands in his pockets.)
At Simpatico, director Jennifer Pratt moves things along too slowly, without the peaks and valleys the show needs. For long stretches, it truly seems to be a play about nothing. Similarly, the attractive young actors are too generic. These are really difficult roles, characters that turn on a dime from dopey-cute to scary-paranoid — and here, most of it cruises along on a single note. (On the other hand, scenic designer Jacob Walton provides a scarily realistic urban-guy's-first-apartment — please, God, don't let me go back there again!)
In the end, I'm not sure that even a superb production would bring back Youth.
Ten years ago, I was, like, totally there. Today, I'm, like, whatever.
This Is Our Youth | Through Oct. 19, Simpatico Theatre Project at Second Stage at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St., 215-423-0254, simpaticotheatre.org
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