Susan Granger’s review of “Yen” (Lucille Lortel Theatre, Off-Broadway)
With an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for “Manchester By the Sea” tucked into his resume, Lucas Hedges makes his New York stage debut in this MCC production.
Hedges plays 16 year-old Hench who – with his mentally-challenged, hyperkinetic half-brother, 14 year-old Bobbie (Justice Smith) – occupies a filthy room in one of London’s council flats. Since their diabetic, alcoholic mother, Maggie (Ari Graynor), lives with her latest boyfriend, they have no parental supervision.
As a result, these dysfunctional adolescents spend most of their time playing violent video games and watching porn. Between them, they own one T-shirt which they exchange whenever one or the other leaves to steal food, batteries, etc.
Their dog, named Taliban, is confined to another room because of his tendency to bite.
The tedious isolation of the boys’ lives is broken by the arrival of a 16 year-old Welsh neighbor, Jennifer (Stefania LaVie Owen), from across the courtyard, who is concerned about Taliban’s incessant barking and perceives the parallel between Taliban’s abandonment and their own.
To explain the title, Yen is a synonym for longing and it’s what Jenny’s late father used to call her.
In this latest import from London’s Royal Court Theatre, playwright Anna Jordan so overloads the melodrama with desolation and depression that it’s hard to relate to the characters on an emotional level. So something must have been lost mid-Atlantic.
Confidently directed by Trip Cullman, the acting ensemble does its best, but this Greenwich Village production – with Mark Wendland’s set, Paloma Young’s costumes Ben Stanton’s lighting and Fitz Patton’s music & sound design – radiates bleakness, augmented by Lucy Mackinnon’s video projections, jolting sound effects and a bright light that shines directly at the audience.