This Is Our Youth

Photo credit: Michael Brosilow
Steppenwolf Theater

Is this the hottest show in Chicago right now? Maybe. It's a summer treat and not here for long before it goes to Broadway. Maybe a little more on that in a bit.

Michael Cera is the most famous of the cast. He was certainly great, but it was Kieran Culkin who really brought his A game and a little more to this performance. At the intermission I turned to my husband and said, "Holy cow, his toes were even acting" and my husband said, "I saw that, too, and thought - whoa."

The play ended and the discussion started and I thought, with a title like "This Is Our Youth" you would expect a coming of age story and perhaps the title was a misnomer to some extent. And, then the more I thought about it, I thought maybe this was a coming of age story, but one a little bit hidden.

I was also initially confused about the setting, the early 80's. Because I went in expecting "Our Youth" to refer to today's youth. But, after leaving I thought - this is "our youth" - like "our," the theater-going audience. Most of the audience was alive in the early 80s - and, well, everyone was younger and some were youth.

I think this was a coming of age story in the sense that bad things happen to most people some time in their early years and to grow up you have to move past it and put it away. The main character (Cera) lost his sister to murder nine years prior to the action. He says at the beginning of the play that he keeps photos of her around his bedroom because it helps him move forward. He shows up at his friend's house with a suitcase of childhood treasures/collectibles that have monetary value, but he doesn't really want to sell unless he has to. He is holding on to his childhood, which is also a time when his sister was alive. By the end of the play his best friend (Culkin) has sold his childhood memories for less than their value and he is able to let go of them. In letting go he is able to conceive a future of living with his father and going back home. He is also ready to start renegotiating some of his established childhood relationships.

He barely comes of age, but in a sense he becomes unstuck, which is truly important - especially in light of a disrupted childhood and growing up in a house of both privilege and grief.

Oh, and there is a girl. I think she is in there to give some philosophic framing to the story.

This is headed for Broadway. I think it is a stretch. With a few tweaks and alterations, I think this year's production of the amazing Russian Transport, especially some set tweaks, could have done well. Without the name power, I think this would be a great match for Playwright Horizons or Second Stage, both places Culkin has performed before, actually. I've been to the Cort and I think it's a little big for the intimacy needed for this play. I could be wrong, but I think it's also a bit of a stretch for them to sell seats night after night in a Broadway house for any length of time.

Still, as the hottest show in town, I didn't leave disappointed. The play itself wasn't life altering. It had a different vibe to it, different from almost anything I've seen, and for that it is notable.

On my Broadway must-see list this fall, though - I'd put it in the bottom of my top 10, probably. But, then again, I've already seen it. For Culkin, though, I might just go twice to see which micro expressions I missed the first time round and if his toes are doing anything different in week five from week two.