Kenneth Lonergan’s This Is Our Youth takes us back 40-some years … to an era when heavy-duty drugs were not only a path to pleasure (and sometimes pain) but the coinage of commerce for young people. It was the Reagan era, but the three young people on stage in this Gwydion Theatre production don’t hear First Lady Nancy Reagan’s warnings to “Just say no.” They just keep saying yes.
The scene is Dennis’ studio apartment somewhere on the upper west side of Manhattan. (His parents are paying the rent.) Dennis (Grayson Kennedy) is alone, watching TV and munching dry cereal. Then Warren arrives, clearly uninvited, and plops down a suitcase and a backpack. His wealthy father kicked him out of their apartment and Warren has arrived at Dennis’ place because he has no place to sleep. Dennis is a little older (by two years) than 19-year-old Warren (Kason Chesky).
Dennis, who fancies himself a world-weary, uber-sophisticate, is a drug dealer and (in his mind) an entrepreneurial genius. He’s also a bully and teases and harasses the quieter Warren throughout the play.
The third person in this story is 19-year-old Jessica (Annalie Ciolino), a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology, who Warren longs to deepen his friendship with.
The play is smartly directed by Andrew Shipman, who keeps the two-day story moving at a brisk pace. The three actors all perform highly believable characterizations—so believable that you may feel like a voyeur spying on their lives in this tiny theater space. (Set design is by Grayson Kennedy, light and sound design by Morgan Wilson. Katie Espinoza is stage manager.)
In the scenes between Dennis and Warren, Dennis plots—to earn cash by drug sales and drug parties and thus attract women—and Warren acquiesces. They’re loud, vulgar and often even violent, as the two sometimes fight or wrestle on the apartment floor.
After Dennis leaves to conduct business elsewhere, Jessica arrives unexpectedly. She and Warren have a rather quiet, thoughtful conversation, which sets a completely different tone than the two-guy scenes. Jessica is a quiet conversationalist but asks piercing questions to learn more about Warren, in whom she has some interest too. They discuss their goals and their families—and at one point, Jessica points out to Warren that 10 years from now, he may be quite a different person. Like a plastic surgeon “reminiscing about how wild you used to be.” Her theory is that people's personalities undergo some kind of fundamental alteration as they get older. Warren thinks that sounds a bit weird and he has no intention of becoming part of that boring society that Jessica describes. Even though Warren disagrees with this and some of Jessica’s other opinions, he still finds her fascinating and the two become closer in this scene.
By the end of the play, Warren has gained the confidence to tell Dennis he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, after Dennis’ long rant (a great piece of writing by Lonergan) about how he can be a great film director or a chef or whatever else he wants to be. Warren points out, “I mean you've never done it. You don't know anything about it. You just like movies.”
This Is Our Youth is a slice of 1982 life—a character study of the lives of the offspring of a few wealthy (and liberal) Manhattan families. They suffer extremes of joy, anger and sadness as the hours pass. In his director’s note, Shipman observes that this is “not a play about monumental discoveries. It’s a play about incremental change…. And while our youth might not have looked exactly like the lives of these upper-class kids from Manhattan in the early ‘80s, their existential crisis is instantly recognizable.”
Playwright Lonergan is a writer/director known for Manchester by the Sea, Margaret and Gangs of New York. His play, Lobby Hero, will be staged by Shattered Globe Theatre this season.
Gwydion Theatre is in its second season in Chicago. The company was formed by a group of actors in Los Angeles in 2019 and moved to Chicago after the pandemic. Grayson Kennedy, who plays Dennis, is co-founder and artistic director.
This Is Our Youth by Gwydion Theatre continues through September 28 in the second floor Studio 44 space at the Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N Lincoln Ave. Running time is about two hours plus an intermission. Tickets are $32 plus fees for performances Thursday-Sunday.
For more information on this and other plays, see theatreinchicago.com.
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