Reality inspires Off-Central’s ‘This is Our Youth’

The next generation of Tampa Bay actors is coming along splendidly, as audiences are seeing lately in professional theater productions on both sides of the big pond.

Three young performers rule the stage in Kenneth Lonergan’s powerful This is Our Youth, opening Thursday at the Off-Central (formerly Studio Grand Central) in St. Petersburg.

The centerpiece of the dark comedy is the relationship between Dennis (Anthony Gervais) and Warren (Harrison Baxley), two intelligent twenty-somethings who deal drugs, talk shade about women, argue, bitch and spar – and have absolutely no idea where their lives are headed.

“I love how it captures such a specific moment in the transition between being a kid and trying to figure out how to be like an adult,” says Gervais, whose Dennis is an arrogant, strutting alpha dog. “Kind of having your life together, and kind of really not at the same time. It’s set in the ‘80s, but all their existential crises feel so relevant now, and can definitely connect to my life.”

Warren is, in many ways, Dennis’ polar opposite. He’s insecure, inexperienced with the opposite sex and dealing with a badly broken family life (Dennis has his own apartment, paid for by his wealthy father, and that’s where the play takes place).

“I was Warren,” Baxley laughs. “I have been Warren. We’ve all had that time in our lives where we’re not exactly sure what the next step is. But I also feel that it’s sort of a young man’s Waiting For Godot. This ‘Who Am I Going to Become?’ is very like Three Sisters. But I don’t get to see a lot of plays where people our age – representations of 19, 20-year-olds – are stuck like that.

“And it’s really cool to be trusted to be on a stage, just the three of us for two hours, and tell such an honest story.”

Off-Central proprietor Ward Smith cast the three actors and is the director of This is Our Youth. There’s something wonderfully claustrophobic about Dennis’ dirty, trashed apartment nestled inside the 50-seat theater – there’s literally nowhere for the characters to go. Smith told his actors they were “rats in a cage.” The audience is intimately involved with them.

Sydney Reddish plays Jessica, the late-arriving third member of the show’s dysfunctional circle. Reddish was the first to read This is Our Youth, and she brought it to director/producer Smith’s attention.

“The thing that’s always drawn me to it is the relationships between the characters,” she says. “I just think that the way that they’re written is so interesting, and so specific. They’re such different relationships than I’ve seen in plays – especially Warren and Dennis, the way that the two of them interact is so fiery, and fun, to watch and be a part of.”

Says Gervais: “Dennis and I are very different, but there’s also definitely parts of him that I connect to. I actually find that I’m the Warren to several Dennises in my life. I know some people who are like Dennis. And in some ways I do connect to Dennis, and his confidence and his arrogance – but deep down, he’s also insecure. And I think that’s something everyone can relate to.”

Each actor found and followed a thread to their own lives. “Under all those layers,” adds Reddish, “the thing about the play that I really, really love is the fact that they’re all so lost, and confused about life and what they’re doing, and I find that so relate-able.

“There are so many possibilities that they could go for. I think that chaotic point in life is so exciting. And also unnerving.”

The most important layer, the key to This is Our Youth, is the push-and-pull between Dennis and Warren. Everything that happens, the sweet, the laugh-out-loud and the painful, is built upon that foundation.

“Anthony and I started by saying ‘We’re going to say these lines as honestly as possible,’” explains Baxley. “And we’ll get the physicality later. And it’s very easy, because it’s so close to exactly who we are and how we talk, and the experiences we’ve been through.

“Every night, before we go out, Anthony and I say to each other, ‘I got you.’ So I’m just talking to Anthony, or I’m talking to Sydney. No matter what happens.”

Details and tickets can be found here.