DNA – Rose Theatre, Kingston-upon-Thames

Writer: Dennis Kelly

Director: Anthony Banks

Reviewer: Sheila Cornelius

The Public Reviews Rating:

First produced at the National Theatre in 2007, Dennis Kelly’s ‘DNA’ is a popular GCSE set text that kept a youthful audience enthralled last night at Kingston’s Rose Theatre. The apron stage and a horse-shoe shaped auditorium including on-the-floor seating provided an ideal venue for this starkly-lit, simple staging of Hull Truck’s production.

Dennis Kelly, best known as writer of the current hit, ‘Matilda the Musical’, denies that his work is dark – bleak may be a better word – but ‘DNA’s most obvious literary antecedent is William Golding’s novel, ‘Lord of the Flies’, an exam syllabus favourite. Unlike the privileged boarding school characters marooned without adult supervision on a desert island, here eight working-class protagonists, teenage students at the same urban school, react to a similar event – a bullying incident which spins out of control.

Abstract black and white patterns are projected on a screen of plastic strips, from which characters emerge. Anthony Bank’s pared-down direction and design effectively convey both a wood where increasingly panicky dialogue takes place and a nearby urban estate. Alex Baranowki’s suggestive soundtrack includes painfully screechy traffic between the scenes.

Much of the humour in the dialogue originates from repetition of banal phrases, but plot twists and unusual characters make for a thought-provoking thriller. As in Classical Greek Tragedy, we learn about offstage events from a series of dialogue reports. The group flounders in the face of disaster and turn to the supposedly cleverest member of the group, Phil. Reactions differ, ranging from the sensitivity of Brian, (Daniel Francis-Swaby) driven to the brink of madness, to the indifference of the taciturn Phil.

The youngsters seemingly operate in a moral vacuum, concerned only with immediate solutions and how to avoid consequences. Leah’s monologues, when she is alone with Phil, touch on wider environmental causes, but events in the local community seem to be happening on another planet. Everyday reality is confined to the concerns of two youngsters concerned about their careers – a nerdy would-be dentist and a ruthless future celebrity. ‘We are screwed’ as a repeated refrain, adds to the sense of helpless dread.

Performances all round were sound, with Leah Brotherhead shouldering the biggest burden as the garrulous girl-friend of sinister, snack-obsessed Phil. As the ruminative ‘fixer’, James Alexandrou, of TV EastEnders fame, had few lines, but you could have heard the proverbial pin drop in the silence before they were delivered. Elexi Walker conveyed a ruthless, opportunistic Cathy, the only character whose enjoyment of violence was without reservation.