British Playwright Anna Jordan's "YEN" Starring Lucas Hedges ("Manchester By the Sea)

Anna Jordan is a contemporary British playwright.  "YEN" is her first full length play.   I had a hankering to leave before the 1st ACT started.  The audio-visual pre-show had blaring rap music & a video of fast & jilted traffic shifting through West London.  The film a long loop.  Perhaps without the headache inducing noise, might have made an amusing ride.  It was artfully filme in black/white with surprising sluices of colors.  The play commences abruptly with the 2 young male actors Hench (Lucas Hedges) and Bobbie (justice Smith) entering the derelict room with a fold-out sofa & large screen tv turned on pornography (not for us to see - but to hear all the gratuitous groans) & running commentary by the two teens; brothers by the same mother, Maggie (Ari Graynor.)  Hedges is 16 and Bobbie is bi-racial & just a year younger.  Hench is the top dog in this brother hierarchy.  Bobbie's hyperactivity, immaturity and mental aptitude are blantantly impaired.  The 1 room set is the dilapidated flat owned by their irresponsible, hostile, alcholic mother.  The mom lives with her boyfriend leaving the boys to fend for themselves.  Maggie's mother was living with them until simply left & took off with almost anything of value including their clothes.  They're left with 1 t-shirt between them & their only pair of shoddy pants.  However, the boys are not totally alone.  They have a growling german shepherd in the bathroom (kept off-stage) named Taliban.  The boys are constantly tossling & fighting over whose turn to clean the dog's shit which accumulates.  They never take the dog outside.  A young girl is observed looking in at their aptmt by Bobbie.  He assumes it's because she's interested in Hench.   It turns out the girl, Jennifer, is a dog lover who threatens to call the police to report their neglect of the dog or turn him over to her.  Jennifer, "Jenny, Jen, Jane or Yen" lives in the same project.  She's recently moved from Wales with her unstable mother.  They are living with her uncle, his girlfriend & the girlfriend's daughter.  Yen, is the name she prefers.  Her beloved, deceased father would call her Yen.  Yen (also the word for Chinese currency) had stock in at least one loving parent.  Neither Hench or Bobbie have a loving, responsible parent although Maggie's sporadic visits elicit immense happiness & hyperactivity from Bobbie.  Bobbie's volatility explodes when Yen threatened to remove Teleban.  His anguished pleas arouse sympathy from Hench & the startled but compassionate Yen.  Yen becomes a regular visitor & dog walker & ray of light in their dismal domicile.  An innocent & lighthearted "dinner party" is destroyed when Maggie shows up and wrecks havoc.  The only redeeming qaulity to the play is the tenderness Yen shows to both Bobbie & Hench.  But Bobbie's flaying, mental instability & the squalid living conditions left little of value in the play.   I didn't stay for Act II of "YEN" and will never go again.  I had a desire to leave before the end in YEN of Act I.