Director Anna D. Shapiro’s revival of Kenneth Lonergan’s play This Is Our Youth has meet a flood of criticism, both good and bad.
The Steppenwolf-cum-Broadway production stars Michael Cera, Kieran Culkin and Tavi Gevinson recreating the 1980’s scene in the Upper West Side of New York. This week, the New York-based play gets a New York critique. The Village Voice has round up two critics from two different age groups to provide commentary on the coming of age story line.
The language “LOL! Old people! Ha-ha! Boys!” used by Annabel Finkel gives way to the fact that she is the writer the Village Voice headline refers to as a “youth.” Because of her age, she is able to relate to the material within This Is Our Youth more than critique it.
“This Is Our Youth is about the time in your life when people expect you to act like an adult but you aren't ready to be one yet, which I write about as if I've experienced it because I basically have, vicariously,” writes Finkel.
She continues down the youth-laden road, stating that her new favorite television show is New Girl and reflects on how she hasn’t quite reached the lame 30-something-year-old problems of the world.
Comparatively, Tom Sellar focuses on the play and the characters within.
“We can't take our eyes off Cera, a wiry wonder who stays coiled and remains completely inert at the same time,” wrotes Sellar on Cera’s performance. “His long arms and legs dangle from his core like unwanted appendages; his voice stretches into a measured, sometimes pleading, high pitch.”
Sellar offers a more traditional review, complete with actor, character and plot line analysis. He strays away from newly adopted youth related language such as “LOL” and the intentional use of all caps. The last line of his coherent review enlists a hint at Sellar's age and we gather why these two reviews are fittingly oppositional. “These New York kids perch atop the fault line of adolescence, and as they teeter we watch and remember with pits in our stomachs.”
As the play is about the conflict between child and adult, the criticism comparison of pairing up and publishing Sellar and Finkel together was indefinitely genius on VV’s part.
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