It doesn’t take long for the assertive, self-possessed Jenny to see in the brothers’ squalid, feral existence a parallel to the dog’s life. Things change for the better - and worse - when a young Welsh neighbor, 16-year-old Jenny, nicknamed “Yen,” (Stefania LaVie Owen), intrudes on their isolated existence, concerned at first for the welfare of their dog Taliban (“Because he’s violent…and he’s brown,” says Bobbie, explaining the name.) Not so fawning is brooding, hardened Hench, who keeps his distance from his mother while clearly still in her thrall. But Mum occasionally drops by, mainly to scrounge for money or be worshipped with puppy-like neediness by Bobbie, desperate for any gesture of interest or affection. The boys’ alcoholic and diabetic mother Maggie (Ari Graynor) has left these fatherless sons - one dad died in an overdose, the other was convicted of rape - to their own devices in order to live with her latest abusive lover. Fitz Patton’s music and sound design and Lucy Mackinnon’s projections also contribute to the jagged-edge feel of the production. The effects of abandonment and isolation mixed with a longing for human connection is brought to stark, vivid life under Trip Cullman’s unsparing direction.
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