This Is Our Youth Review

It’s been nearly two decades since Kenneth Lonergan’s This Is Our Youth first appeared with its searing portrait of college-age entitlement and ennui. The drama, which helped launch the career of Mark Ruffalo as well as Lonergan, is now back in a crackling Broadway revival by director Anna D. Shapiro that runs through Jan. 4 following a successful run this summer at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre. In their Broadway debuts, Kieran Culkin and Michael Cera establish an appropriately uneasy rapport as two Manhattan trustifarian stoners, the progeny of a famous painter and a lingerie tycoon who seem to want very little to do with their college-dropout sons. Culkin’s Dennis is a bike messenger and sometime dope dealer with a serious alpha-dog streak, while Cera’s Warren is a depressive ne’er-do-well and perpetual hanger-on who gets kicked out of his dad’s place and turns up at Dennis’ Upper West Side studio apartment with a giant suitcase and $15,000 of his dad’s cash.