Kenneth Lonergan’s This is Our Youth has become something of a New York theater staple in the past few decades. It is never too long until another revival is ready; this is surely due in part to the fact that its subject of spoiled, reckless, rich Manhattanites has not lost its relevance in the slightest.
For Battalion Theatre, currently performing the play at the Dorothy Strelsin Theatre at the Abingdon Theatre Company, the focus is also on youth. Part of their stated purpose is to address “the relative shortage of great modern parts for young actors.” But this can actually be a bit confusing in the case of the actors who inhabit the rich New York kids in This is Our Youth who seem as if they should be much younger than their portrayers.
Also confusing is the decision to modernize this play – which is set in the 1980s – without adjusting the actual language of the play. It is understandable to want to do justice to Lonergan’s oft-repeated words by leaving them unchanged. But then to stage the piece with the most modern laptops creates a dissonance that the production does not seem to presume to resolve.
In the opening night performance of such a short run, some unpolished performances are to be anticipated. Luckily, though, Jessica arrives after what feels like a bunch of aimless meandering in the first act. Hannah Kloepfer plays Jessica, who is similar to her male counterparts (Dan Gonon and Gerrit Thurston) in character – sophomoric in action and belief but clearly well-educated thanks to her vocabulary and affluent apathy. In Kloepfer’s hands, she becomes charismatic the way others are not. Her character’s vulnerability is poorly masked with every line and movement; she smokes cigarettes with the same unending unease that she uses to avoid first kisses. But Kloepfer is charismatic throughout it all – her performance adds some weight to whatever the next moment will bring.
This Battalion Theatre production does not add much to the long list of This is Our Youth iterations, but it doesn’t negate the strength of the writing, either. There is enough strong acting to make it a fine introduction to the play – even if some of the choices in the production are dubious at best.
