Lonergan - This is Our Youth

First published in the United States in 2000 by The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc. N EW Y ORK : 141 Wooster Street New York, NY 10012 www.overlookpress.com For bulk and special sales, contact , or write us at the above address. Copyright 2000 by Kenneth Lonergan All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. ISBN: 978-1-46830-908-9 CAUTION : Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that THIS IS OUR YOUTH is subject to a royalty. It is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, and of all countries covered by the International Copyright Union (including the Dominion of Canada and the rest of the British Commonwealth), and all other countries of the Pan-American Copyright Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention, and of all countries with which the United States has reciprocal copyright relations.

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D ENNIS Z IEGLER , 21 years old W ARREN S TRAUB , 19 years old J ESSICA G OLDMAN , 19 years old * * * * * The play takes place in Denniss one-room apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

The time is late March, 1982. World Premiere originally presented by
The New Group:
Scott Elliott, Artistic Director;
Claudia Catania, Executive Producer

T HIS IS O UR Y OUTH was first produced by The New Group (Scott Elliott, Artistic Directory; Claudia Catania, Executive Producer), in New York City, in October, 1996. It was directed by Mark Brokaw. The cast was as follows:

D ENNIS Z IEGLER	Mark Rosenthal
W ARREN S TRAUB	Mark Ruffalo
J ESSICA G OLDMAN	Missy Yager

T HIS IS O UR Y OUTH was produced by Second Stage Theatre (Carole Rothman, Artistic Director; Carol Fishman, Managing Director; Alexander Fraser, Executive Director), by special arrangement with Barry and Fran Weissler and The New Group (Scott Elliott, Artistic Directory; Claudia Catania, Executive Producer), in New York City, in November, 1998. It was directed by Mark Brokaw; the set design was by Allen Moyer; the costume design was by Michael Krass; the lighting design was by Mark McCullough; the sound design was by Robert Murphy; the fight director was Rick Sordeler; and the production stage manager was William H. Lang.

The cast was as follows:

D ENNIS Z IEGLER	Mark Rosenthal
W ARREN S TRAUB	Mark Ruffalo
J ESSICA G OLDMAN	Missy Yager

A cold Saturday night in March, 1982, after midnight. A small, impersonal pillbox studio apartment on the second or third floor of a somewhat rundown postwar building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan between Broadway and West End, lived in by DENNIS ZIEGLER . There are a TV and stereo, a lot of records, some arbitrary furniture, a little-used kitchenette, and a mattress on the floor in the corner. Scattered around the room are piles of the New York Post, sports magazines, and a lot of underground comic books. There is sports equipment in the apartment, if not actually in view. The room looks lived-in, but aside from a wall of photographs from DENNIS s life, no effort whatsoever has been made to decorate it.

It looks like it could be packed up and cleared out in half an hour. DENNIS is watching an old black-and-white movie on TV. He is a grungy, handsome, very athletic, formerly long-haired kid, just twenty-one years old, wearing baggy chino-type pants and an ancient polo shirt. He is a very quick, dynamic, fanatical, and bullying kind of person; amazingly good-natured and magnetic, but insanely competitive and almost always successfully so; a dark cult god of high school only recently encountering, without necessarily recognizing, the first evidence that the dazzling, aggressive hipster techniques with which he has always dominated his peers might not stand him in good stead for much longer. The buzzer buzzes. DENNIS is too cool to answer it right away.

It buzzes again. He gets up and goes to the intercom. DENNIS Yeah? WARREN ( Over the intercom. ) Yo, Dennis. Its me, Warren. ) Yo, lemme up. ) Yo, lemme up.

DENNIS hits the buzzer. Sits down and watches TV. There is a knock at the door. Again, he doesnt answer it right away. Another knock. WARREN (Off.) Yo, Denny.

DENNIS gets up and unlocks the door without opening it, then plops down again to watch TV. WARREN STRAUB comes in the front door. He is a skinny nineteen-year-olda strange barking-dog of a kid with large tracts of thoughtfulness in his personality that are not doing him much good at the moment, probably because they so infrequently influence his actions. He has spent most of his adolescence in hot water of one kind or another, and is just beginning to find beneath his natural eccentricity a dogged self-possession his friends may not all share. But despite his enormous self-destructiveness, he is above all things a trier. He comes into the apartment lugging a very big suitcase and an overloaded heavy-duty hiking backpack. He comes into the apartment lugging a very big suitcase and an overloaded heavy-duty hiking backpack.

WARREN Hey. DENNIS Whats with the suitcase? WARREN Nothing What are you doing? DENNIS Nothing. WARREN closes the door and puts down his stuff. Sits down next to DENNIS on the mattress and looks at the TV. WARREN What are you watching? DENNIS Lock the door. WARREN gets up and locks the door.

He sits down as before. WARREN What are you watching? DENNIS flashes off the TV with the remote control. DENNIS Nothing. What do you want? WARREN Nothing. DENNIS I dont have any pot. WARREN I dont want any.

I got some. DENNIS Let me see it. WARREN produces a ziplock plastic bag carefully wrapped around a small amount of dark green marijuana. DENNIS opens it and smells it. DENNIS This is good. Whered you get it? WARREN From Christian.

DENNIS Can we smoke it? WARREN Im saving it. DENNIS For what? DENNIS takes the pot out of the bag and reaches for a record album. He starts to crumble the pot onto the album cover. WARREN Just half. DENNIS Shut up. WARREN Just half, man.

DENNIS looks at him and crumbles the rest of the pot onto the album