Play looks at teenage '80s drama

"Today is the day!" might be an appropriate tagline for Kenneth Lonergan's play "This Is Our Youth." Showing today through Saturday and Monday through Saturday of next week at the Wells-Metz Theatre, the play has also run in London with performances by Jake Gyllenhaal and Anna Paquin. \nWith only three actors, "This Is Our Youth" takes place in one room on one day in 1982. The play focuses on Dennis, Warren and Jessica -- three young adults from New York. \n"These are three kids who've been handed everything," said Christina Pumariega, who plays the headstrong Jessica. "They're the Reagan generation." \nBrad Fletcher, a senior theater and secondary education major, plays Dennis.\n"My character's way with words is remarkable," Fletcher said, smiling, "He's the one girls wanted, and boys wanted to be." \nWarren, the slightly irritating, but well connected, friend, is played by Kenny Dellinger, a junior theater major. Dellinger characterized his on-stage alter ego as a dishrag.\nPumariega describes Jessica as "a stereotypical West Side New Yorker. She wants to be a fashion designer. She's only 19, but would like to think of herself as worldly." \nThese three characters bounce off each other in a confined space, and the situations are pushed on by drugs, sex and a lot of '80s music. Director Rick Fonté, a MFA graduate student, is in a unique position; he can see both sides of the adolescent turmoil presented in the play. Because he remembers the '80s well, he made a point of keeping everything authentic to 1982, when the play takes place. \n"Everything, especially the music, is specific to the time, because specifics are universal," he said. "But the issues (of growing up) don't change. Dennis looks at his life, where he's been, and where he might want to go, and realizes that today's the day to take the first step." \nThe coming-of-age story is a classic one and has been done many times in many ways, but the director and small cast promise the play to be different. \n"I'm proud of it because its not the usual fare," Dellinger said. "It doesn't have that air of theater appreciation. Anybody on this campus could come and relate to some aspect of it." \nThe play has been described as having a "Catcher in the Rye" feel.\n"It's very Holden Caulfield-esque," Pumariega said. "The language drips with J.D. Salinger." \nDon't expect heavy-handed philosophy, though. Sitting through this play is like spending an evening with three of your funniest friends; it embraces the humor of real life. \n"I didn't come in with an agenda, but I saw something there that hadn't been explored," Fonté said. "I wanted the audience to feel as if the fourth wall was just lifted away so that they can look in on the story."\nThe show starts at 8 p.m. with two Saturday matinees at 2 p.m. Tickets are $15 for the general public, $13 for students and seniors and may be purchased by phone through all TicketMaster locations 333-9955 or at the IU Auditorium box office.