Violence and Son by Gary Owen begins with an electronic sizzle. A boy in a fez and bowtie – à la Matt Smith’s Doctor Who – is wielding a sonic screwdriver. It ends on an alarming triumph: a boa constrictor embrace, the sound of a trap being shut.
In the Welsh valleys you are named for what you do, explains Suze – like Dai the Butcher. She herself might be Suze the Slapped. Her fortysomething boyfriend is “Vile”, short for Violence. He has had a drink every day since he was 14. When a man who Suze calls “simple” puts his hand up her skirt, Vile breaks his jaw. He also keeps the bullies away from the 17-year-old son who has turned up on his doorstep. Liam is a romantic virgin and a swot, who uses his phone to look up the difference between an aphorism and a proverb. This is a story of how learned behaviour can look like inheritance.
The plot at times looks like a series of hurdles; the conclusion is not quite earned. Yet the dialogue is continuously salty, and Hamish Pirie’s vigorous production features four finely tuned, effortless-seeming performances. Morfydd Clark is gently enticing; Siwan Morris erupts juicily; David Moorst is by turns touching, unreadable and sinister; while you can see the unspent emotion moving through Jason Hughes. The tattooed swallows on his shoulders look as if they are taking flight.
• Violence and Son is at the Royal Court, London, until 11 July
