Kenneth Lonergan

his Is Our Youth” finds eloquence in the verbal fumbling and listless non sequiturs of ambition-free, overgrown stoners. But Kenneth Lonergan is no mere tape recorder. Like the best “vernacular” playwrights (including David Mamet, August Wilson and, more recently, Clare Barron), he translates what he hears into a heightened form of speech. His dialogue sounds truer to life than life itself, in capturing both the moral evasions and unintended revelations that emerge every time people open their mouths.

As a portrait of a generation of instinctive drifters, Lonergan's play is often very funny. [...] In purely behavioural terms, the play is dead accurate, and Lonergan is not slow to point out that these are all the kids of rich parents who themselves lead pretty messed-up lives.