Teenage kicks | 8 November 2018

Lauren Gunderson’s play I and You opens in the scruffy bedroom of 17-year-old Caroline. Lonely, beautiful and furious, she’s unable to participate in school life owing to a chronic liver problem. Into her hideaway barges Anthony, a handsome geek, who wants her to help with a Walt Whitman project. Caroline tries to chase him off but resourceful Anthony charms her into accepting his presence. What follows is a hilarious and beautifully observed study of modern teenage romance. Parents will recognise details like this: Caroline offers her guest a Coke but instead of asking him to fetch it from the kitchen she sends the request to Mom by text. Five minutes pass. ‘Where’s that Coke?’ huffs Caroline. ‘I ordered it, like, a month ago.’ Anthony lists his squeaky-clean hobbies: poetry, jazz and basketball. ‘You’re such a senator,’ jeers Caroline, but the insult is also a come-hither which the characters can’t read but the audience can. Not many boys want to become a senator but a lot of girls would like to marry one.

The delicate ingenuity of this moment is typical of Gunderson’s breathtaking artistic facility. The bickering lovers seal their relationship with a chaste kiss but their romance is disrupted by a colossal and entirely unforeseen reversal of circumstances. This surprise ending doesn’t belong in the class of ‘clever plot twists’ but in the rarer field of ‘great life-affirming moments in the theatre’. Seriously. A new playhouse could be built to stage nothing but productions of this 90-minute masterpiece. Some critics found the ending ‘unearned’ or ‘overcontrived’, but it went through my heart like a dagger. Outside, I passed a sympathetic reviewer. ‘That’s one of the best plays I’ve ever seen!’ I chirped. ‘Grrr,’ he replied.