DNA is best described as Blue Remembered Hills for millennials. It is written by Dennis Kelly, famous for his darkly comic theatre writing such as Osama The Hero, After The End and recent sell-out Royal Court hit Girls and Boys as well as his work on the musical adaptation of Matilda and his greatly underrated Channel 4 series Utopia. The plot focuses on the story of a group of teens responsible for the death of one of their peers and their desperate attempts to try and cover their tracks. Originally produced as part of National Theatre Connections in 2007, DNA has achieved much acclaim to the extent it is now a GCSE text. This introspective and dark take on young people makes it the perfect choice for Magdalen College School 6th formers as they stage it at the Burton Taylor Studio this week.
On entering the BT, the audience is welcomed to Jack Bradley and Yanran Huangfu’s beautiful set design. The duo use a hessian backdrop, with the stencils of wild and leafless trees, behind stacked milk crates and wooden planks to perfectly evoke the fly-tipped, dirty wilderness in which the play is set. Credit should also go to sound designer Joseph Hancock for juxtaposing soft and wilting piano melodies with dissonant feedback sounds in the play's more dramatic moments.
The cast are strong throughout. One of the standout performances comes from Daniel Collier as Phil who organically ends up as the gang’s leader. Collier plays Phil as a borderline sociopath, more loving of his Sainsbury’s bag of snacks than he is of his friends. But when the time comes to take charge, Phil does so with a chilling level of politician-like polish and moral justification. Collier lets lines like 'this is a bad situation…we didn’t want this situation…but we’ve got this situation' ring out, underplayed like someone who knows he has the other characters in the palm of his hand.
Director Mila Perera has certainly brought out the best of her cast and orchestrates the piece to constantly rack up the tension. Perera also makes bold choices to gender-blind several characters including Leah who becomes Leo in this production. What is often played as an unrequited love scenario of Leah lusting after Phil now becomes a weak a whimpish boy desperate for the guidance and friendship of a stronger young man. James Grant steps up to the mark perfectly in this role, having complete control of some incredible monologues. Credit is also due to Alex Ansdell as Danny fusing moments of comedy ('I can’t get mixed up in things like this, I’m going to be a dentist!’) with heartfelt grief and complete physiological collapse as well as Stan Righton for his truthful performance as Adam which is a masterful study in autism spectrum disorder.
The one section that didn’t work was the physical theatre sequence. Whilst it had some interesting ideas - the visuals from the iPhone torches were a nice touch - it muddied the important dialogue that accompanied it, was out of step with the rest of the production and resembled bad GCSE drama (ironically a subject not offered by Magdalen College School).
Overall, this is a production well worth seeing. An incredibly difficult text is brought to life with an unimaginable maturity from a cast so young. Highly recommended.