"Boiled down to its essentials, This Is Our Youth examines the lives of three post-adolescents. The action spans two days in 1982, two years after Ronald Reagan became president. The cast consists of three characters, with the focus on 21-year-old Dennis and 19-year-old Warren. Both troubled sons of fathers with successful careers but unsuccessful marriages. Both are college dropouts trapped on the bridge that separates adolescence from adulthood. Dennis is a drug dealer, obviously small-time since his artist father and social worker mother still pay for his grungy studio. Warren is the more needy and sympathetic of the two, a sort of updated Holden Caulfield, though not quite as bright. The play's dramatic action is precipitated when Warren seeks refuge with his friend after his often abusive father has thrown him out of the Central Park West house that hasn't been a real home since a family tragedy nine years earlier. Dennis is the kind of friend who typifies the cliche "with friends like that you don't need enemies." Warren's suitcase is filled not with clothes but with treasured mementos of old toys that represent happier days. That collection becomes something of a third symbolic character as the play moves towards its climax."

If you'd like some more detailed descriptions of the play's plot, please visit my other This Is Our Youth page. There, I have collected excerpts from every review of the play that I have been able to find. :-)

These are quotes of praise that critics had for Jake's performance in This Is Our Youth: "Just the sight of Warren's awkward dancing and over-eager snogging reduced me to tears of laughter and poignant recognition of my own distant youth. Gyllenhaal seizes all his chances as Warren, a beautiful and befuddled loser. But he also movingly suggests a lovable, vulnerable character just beginning to grow into maturity -Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph P.S. The Daily Telegraph also says "Superb, truthful performances from Jake Gyllenhaal, Hayden Christensen and Anna Paquin." ;-) "...but in the play, the performances by Paquin and Christensen are overshadowed by that of Jake Gyllenhaal, who is similarly young, American and talented - but with no big film roles behind him. Yet." -Ian Youngs, BBC News Online "The catalyst is the arrival of his buddy, Warren (a delectably clumsy and sympathetic Jake Gyllenhaal)"..."Consider Warren's brilliantly ham-fisted chatting-up technique. Discovering that Jessica is into smoking, he sweet-talks her with: "Yeah... I never really got into the whole cigarette scene myself.... But I hear great things about it." -Paul Taylor, Financial Times "Jake Gyllenhaal as Warren is naturally comic and engagingly defenceless." -Michael Billington, The Guardian "This is a wonderful set piece for talented young actors, and these three, all with a Hollywood background (the new Star Wars, The Piano, October Sky) are outstanding. Hayden Christensen has the least rewarding role as a charismatic bully whose star is on the wane: he manipulates it delicately. Anna Paquin is exquisite in anxious, beady vamping brightness. And Jake Gyllenhaal as the goofy, truthful worm-who-turns is gloriously touching and funny as he scoops his hair into a fatal quiff, or delivers a series of deadly chat-up lines: 'I was never into the whole cigarette scene. But I hear good things about it.'" -The Observer "...It is Jake Gyllenhaal as the sensitive Warren and Anna Paquin as the talkative Jessica that truly retrieves something from this mire! In fact, it is only when these two are together on the stage that the play has any real bite or interest in that we see real emotion being expressed." -Darren Dalglish, audience member "There's an astute, funny sex scene in which Jake Gyllenhaal, a lumbering, puppyish and poignant Warren ends up bedding Anna Paquin's argumentative, nervy Jessica and emerges a new man. By so doing, he inexplicably breaks the sadistic hold that manipulative Dennis has over him and inexplicably shifts the dynamics of their friendship." -Nicholas de Jong, Evening Standard "The prickly courtship between Paquin’s Jessica and Gyllenhaal’s Warren is the most involving part of the evening. They play their shortlived romance with an anxiety, defensiveness and neediness that is affecting and sweetly comic. ...Yet Gyllenhaal makes the hopelessly confused Warren strangely loveable. He’s touching, too, especially when his “whatever” attitude melts away to reveal something broken inside. It’s an impressive stage debut in a play that’s funny, moving and beautifully written." -Ian Johns, The Times GET READY! This is the review/article in it's entirety...80% of it is about Jake's performance, so I'm going to put the whole thing in here! :-) "THE ARTS: West End enriched by a New York character THEATRE THIS IS OUR YOUTH: As Warren in the American playwright Kenneth Lonergan's new play This Is Our Youth, Jake Gyllenhaal creates one of the great late-adolescent characters of recent drama. He's gauche, accident-prone, sweet. He keeps escaping from the clutches of a father who beats him to those of Dennis, a drug-pushing friend who bullies him. He hasn't yet made it successfully with a girl, and he likes blowing his own assets and his father's on drug experiences. Even his humour is clumsy. Trying to make conversation with a girl, he says dopey things such as: "Like, I've never begun the cigarette scene myself, but I hear great things about it." The sweetness in him comes hand-in-hand with honesty. He doesn't hide the child he has been; he has no clue about what kind of adult he might be, if he should even live that long. But he's so spontaneous that wit just bubbles up in him. He's an adorable, heart-catching blunderer. But he doesn't really blunder about his feelings or his heart: he's firm about the things that matter to him, and he grows firmer as the play proceeds. This Is Our Youth is set in Manhattan in 1982; it's a kind of theatre cousin to Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, set in the era of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. As its two acts take Jake through one evening and the morning after, we begin to see him just starting to grow up, just starting to get a life of his own. It's extraordinary from how many sides we start to see him during the play, and the peaks and troughs to which his experience takes him. Gyllenhaal's performance is perfect - and so rounded that it takes a very long time till you even begin to like this Warren, let alone to realise that he's the central character in the play. I love his body-language: stiff, gawky, artless. When in doubt, he tends to grin: a grin that's apologetic, simple, sincere. His Warren's an enthusiast, or wants to be. There are things wrong with both Lonergan's play and Laurence Boswell's production, notably anachronisms. New York girls surely did not use the adjective "jappy" as early as 1982; none of us used those telephones; and did anyone back then talk of "chilling out"? Dennis is a vain pretty-boy narcissist, but Hayden Christensen demonstrates that side of him so early on that the character has almost nowhere to go. Even so, Christensen handles his very long Act Two speech, helplessly revealing Dennis's absurd self-contradictions, extremely well. And Anna Paquin catches brilliantly Jessica's assured/confused contradictions, taking her to the cusp of vivid caricature without ever sacrificing credibility. It is depressing to read in the Garrick Theatre's Really Useful programme that David Garrick was a famous 17th-century actor. But it's dazzling to read there that this is Gyllenhaal's stage debut. His performance enriches the whole West End. -Alastair Macaulay, Financial Times WHOO!!!! This guy really liked Jake's performance!! Congratulations to Jake! :-D

And, finally, here are some pictures from the play and playbill: Some backstage pictures - not sure who took these, but Jake sure looks cute! :-)