DNA: Play Review – Editor
DNA was once best known at RHS as a play that only Ms Stone’s English classes knew.
Then it became a play only Ms Stone’s drama proteges knew.
Now it’s the talk of the peninsula.
This production was a perfect articulation of Dennis Kelly’s disturbing insight into gang culture and peer manipulation; huge plaudits to all of the cast, crew and director, Ms Stone, for giving us such a thrillingly experimental sixth form production.
We were told to wrap up warm for a performance that started and ended outside. The starkness of the spot-lit dais against the all-encompassing darkness of the parade square, the thinnest of mists creeping over the balustrade, set an appropriately chilling tone for a hard-hitting study of death, denial and mental dissolution.
When a bullying incident goes too far, the result is a tragic death that gang members variously struggle to process. They struggle again when it turns out that the death isn’t quite what it seemed…
Emi S’s performance as a hardened gang leader was a powerful insight into the way that words can mask deep vulnerability. Her verbal violence in Act 1 was juxtaposed by a flimsy Christian redemption in Act 2. Another pitch-perfect performance from Emi, evincing again her versatility as an actor.
An equally dramatic transformation was that of Eri S, an exciting newcomer to the RHS drama scene. Mim M had earlier remarked in English that Eri’s character basically ‘cries all the time’… Certainly she wept profusely in Act 1, portraying a character whose natural goodness cowered at the inherent darkness of Phil’s wicked concealment plan. While the audience enjoyed a bountiful tuck offering at the interval, Eri took on a Haribo-load of meds to emerge as a bizarrely energised presence in a rapidly deteriorating situation for the gang, happy to do anything for the gang; including, abortively, eating dirt. Eri has star potential and we look forward to seeing more of her dramatic abilities in future productions.
Mim M, a veteran of the RHS drama scene, demonstrated her rich expertise in executing wonderfully a role that would be very challenging for any performer, no matter level of experience. Bouncing all of her lines of the disturbingly insular ‘Phil’, she used intonation, body language, timing and volume with aplomb, achieving arguably the play’s comic high point in her threatened departure scene: her delivery was up there with that of Dustin Hoffman in ‘Hook’, melodramatically threatening suicide to a non-plussed Smee.
Phil’s role was a key one and Henry Shadrack always brings something unique to a production. The sudden flourishes of speech, used to manipulate a group desperate to guidance, were as unnerving as the silences that preceded them: and who knew that spreading jam on a waffle could be such a strangely suspenseful spectacle?
Ted Wilson is a wonderful speaker and his role in this play gave another angle from which to admire his oratorical prowess. He spoke to big issues of the play, melding the demotic with the diplomatic in a wonderful show of frustrated wisdom in a world gone haywire.
Smaller roles delivered with remarkable clarity, ability and dramatic instinct abounded, with Bella L, Tami, Nikaiyah, Denis D, Kris K Sean E, Hannah S-U and Polly F all impressing hugely. Any one of these could step up to a bigger role in future and potentially be a star. All other minor performances were equally strong in a play that relied upon the theatrical cohesion of coercive audience engagement – well done, all.
As remarked by the Headmaster this morning, RHS is fortunate to have such talent treading the boards; or, in this case, treading the dais, stairwell, corridor and foyer.
Again, huge congratulations to cast, crew and director: a wonderful two evenings of rich entertainment.
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