Theatre in Review: This is Our Youth (Cort Theatre)

Arrested development has rarely been as uproarious or as touching as in This is Our Youth. By nailing his trio of characters and their milieu--- three lost Jewish kids from well-off Upper West Side families, circa 1982-- - down to the tiniest detail, playwright Kenneth Lonergan gets at something universal; this is just about the last word on what it is like to be young, rudderless, and irresistibly attracted to trouble.

The trouble begins seconds after the lights go up on Todd Rosenthal's set, a well-nigh perfect reproduction of a crappy Manhattan studio rental, over which towers a series of characterless apartment blocks. (Key details include the posters of Richard Pryor and Frank Zappa, the bike hanging from the ceiling, and the stereo speakers as tall as a small human.) We are in the home of Dennis Ziegler, bike messenger, drug dealer, and pothead. At the moment, he is staring at a tiny portable television in a manner suggesting that he has recently sampled his own merchandise. The buzzer rings and in comes Warren Straub, a rolling calamity in the guise of a nice young Jewish boy. Warren, who is even more aimless than Dennis--if that's possible--has just been summarily kicked out by his fed-up father. The young man has gone, but not quietly; he produces a green laundry bag containing $15,000 in small bills that he has lifted from his father's briefcase. "These are the proceeds from my unhappy childhood," he says.

Because Warren has already spent some of the money, Dennis, ever the operator, cooks up a scheme that involves using a thousand dollars of it to buy cocaine at cost from a friendly dealer and unload it to his clientele at a considerable markup. They have approximately 36 hours to make a profit and replace the stolen cash.

Of course, this harebrained scheme is practically programmed to go badly, but Lonergan supplies enough twists and turns to keep us engaged as we follow Warren and Dennis down the road to disaster. In any case, the real joys of This is Our Youth are the playwright's gift for drawing characters who are thoroughly engaging, even at their most foolish and self-destructive, and the pinpoint precision of his ear for dialogue.

In the play's main odd-couple pairing, Dennis is the alpha male, a cynical junior capitalist who insists on dominating anyone in his orbit. (A series of phone calls from his unseen girlfriend, which consists of silence followed by violent verbal fusillades, are among the play's most amusing passages.) "I am the basis of half your personality," he informs the flailing Warren. When Warren notes that Dennis isn't exactly welcome in his parents' home, either, Dennis responds, with some asperity, "My parents pay for this apartment!" as if being bribed to stay away from home represents a superior state of affairs. Even when he attempts sincerity, it's a no-go: Hearing about an acquaintance's terrible experience with drugs, he announces, "At some point in the near future, I am totally stopping!" (Anyone care to lay bets on that?) As played by Kieran Culkin with a mix of stoner pauses and antic bursts of energy, Dennis is the play's evil imp, forever cooking up a Plan B--or C, or D, or E--as he and Warren sink deeper and deeper into trouble.

Unlike Culkin, who has many stage credits, Michael Cera is a newcomer to theatre, and there is a slight stiffness to his work here. But he turns his natural awkwardness to his advantage as Warren, who combines a boyish sweetness with desperately low self-esteem and extremely poor impulse control. He certainly makes you believe that Warren would rob his father without a thought about the consequences, and, later, that he would throw away even more of the money on a romantic night at the Plaza Hotel. (Rather than setting off any alarm bells, this episode leads only to another bout of one-upmanship between Warren and Dennis, who insists that the Pierre is by far the better venue for a luxury tryst.) Cera is particularly amusing when recoiling from the mention of the children's TV series H. R. Pufnstuf ("I can't watch that show! It freaks me out!") and he deftly handles several instances of physical comedy, including a game of catch with a football that nearly lays waste to Dennis' apartment, and a bit of business with a stash of cocaine that I won't describe, except to add that it earns an enormous shock laugh. And he is effortlessly touching when displaying his collection of vintage records and toys, plus his most cherished possession, the "toaster amazing," a rare-edition kitchen appliance that only a nerd could love.

As Jessica, the young lady who gets entangled with this pair of losers, Tavi Gevinson has little acting experience, and it shows. Best known for her fashion blog, she attacks her first stage role with vigor, and she has a number of assets, including a certain emotional transparency and, as expertly dressed by Ann Roth in leggings, boots, and lace dresses, the right look. (Jessica combines a natural vulnerability with a compulsive honesty; for example, she informs Warren that he is on the road from "pot-smoking burnout rebel" to a career as, say, a plastic surgeon.) But her distinctive nasal rasp, which could be a real comic asset in a more seasoned performer, begins to grate, given her tendency to give every line the exact same reading. Whenever she is on stage alone with Cera, the production's energy level takes a hit.

Still, any concerns that this smallish three-character play might not adapt well to a Broadway house are swept aside by Anna D. Shapiro's observant, high-energy staging. This production also carefully notes the background of tragedy--a murdered sibling, a dying parent, the sudden loss of a peer--that helps to explain how these demi-adults have arrived at this particular impasse in the lives. As noted earlier, the production design is meticulous, aided by Brian MacDevitt's seamless, understated lighting, which includes a lovely sunrise effect. The sound design by Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen includes the usual effects--buzzers, phones, traffic noises--plus some well-chosen period musical selections. I could have done without the music played before each act, however.

One might be forgiven for thinking the title of Lonergan's play is a little too on the money, but there's little doubt that in focusing on a specific time and place, he has illuminated a problem that forever recurs. Every generation has its smart, troubled, unloved young people who find themselves clinging to an adolescence that no longer suits them even as they find themselves unable to take the next step into maturity. "Let's go out and play!" Warren says at one point. His tragedy, and that of his friends, is that nobody knows the time for that has passed.--David Barbour