One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today.
This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.
'Laboratories of Our Youth' an Experiment in Period Farce
Alex Hensley and Graham Bowlin play around with romantic chemistry "Laboratories of Our Youth" (Photo: Darryl DeLaney)
Harvey (Jesse Threatt) and Abe (Graham Bowlin) are a pair of "Mad Men"-era physics grad student roommates in love with the same Dartmouth coed (Alex Hensley) in Bowlin's new play "Laboratories of Our Youth," now running at the Flight Theatre in the Complex. Before you know it, they also find themselves hosting a flamboyant Italian scientist (Dustin Gooch) with a reputation for seducing young male proteges, along with his enigmatically deviant aide-de-camp Johann (Travis Coles). Hijinks ensue.
The play is full of plot points which aren't all that interesting, but they do serve as vehicles for some fairly potent comedic vignettes. Gooch and Coles get the meatiest laugh material, and Hensley makes for a very watchable ingenue. "Laboratories of Our Youth" is an ambitious attempt to conjure a sophisticatedly silly contemporary farce with historically resonant trappings, but its underlying thematic material fails to produce a chemical reaction and the final compound is something less than the sum of its parts.
"Laboratories of Our Youth," directed by Cameron Strittmater, plays tonight, Thursday and next Sunday at 7:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets $7.50 and $10.50 on goldstar.
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
