DNA

PETER LEGGATT is genetically predisposed to like this play. “The acting was superb”.

dna Freshers mackeith pitt profumo

ADC, 17–20th November,  11pm, £6- £4.

Directed by Charlie Parham.

[rating:4/5]

DNA is a play obsessed with the stuff of its title. It is a web ? often a tangled one ? of reference to patterns and grids, the homogenous and the heterogenic, unity and division. These ‘themes’ sometimes appear in subtle wordplay. Danny aspires to be a dentist, and whilst teeth are a product of our genetic structure, both “Danny” and “dental” also contain the acronym “DNA”. But we are left in no doubt that such motifs are not acci-dental, and they are often drilled at too hard; at its worst, such Theme-ing makes the play seem catatonic. No one could say that it suffers from an inappropriate title.

This production embraces these obsessions, drawing them out with direction that teeters between brilliant figuration and painful reiteration. Dennis Kelly’s verbal metonymies are made visual as an apple is unpeeled into the helix of its fruit skin, a conjuring trick repeated with a Rolo wrapper. Like DNA, the set is modular; metal poles linked by rivets make up the stage’s stark adornments, some dripping in strands from above, and such immutable architecture is offset by the crumbling leaves which litter the stage floor, in an obvious but apt material comparison. I liked the swing on stage left and the bench on stage right; a solitary seat for one, a social seat for two. These became touchstone locations particular characters; especially effective were the scenes featuring silent Phil and talkative Leah, the latter accompanying her lonely verbal soarings with leaps upon the swing, leaving Phil mutely decumbent on the floor.

The ideas were elegant, and Parham’s direction portends future mastery, but brilliance occasionally tipped into banal repetition savouring of slight nervousness. This was manifest in the strains of music played sporadically between some, but not all, of the scenes, where again and again four-second snatches of Radiohead’s Creep disrupted where they seemed designed to connect.

The acting was superb, if occasionally anxious.  Mackeith plays Phil, and his (I am guessing unacted) austerity and great height serve him wonderfully. His speeches are few, but they steer the play, and when Phil commands the other characters, Mackeith commands the stage. The other cast members were similarly arresting: Emma Hall was confident and articulate throughout and Kesia Guillery flounces and hangs her jaw with laudable vapidity. It was Laura Profumo, however, who stole the show. At times she was grotesque, her face exhibiting an extraordinary gamut of contortions to mirror her rhetorical twistings. This expressive range was matched by a vocal dexterity; she controlled her volumes masterfully, ranging from a howling shriek that unsettled me in my chair, to a disillusioned whisper.

But there were bizarre incongruities. Lexical register fluctuated wildly. Leah flailed between a stupidity reminiscent of Little Britain’s Vicky Pollard, only to wax suddenly philosophical on astronomy or genetics. This felt more like a weakness in the writing than an attempt to reveal Caliban-like lyrical sensitivities, but it was a weakness exacerbated by the accentual division of the cast? I wasn’t convinced they all went to the same school? and some minor fumbling of details. Dennis Kelly, you see, writes about council estates, so what was Danny the dentist doing carrying John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty? The Cambridge History of Political Thought edition, no less. It is an apt symbol of this play’s weakness; it wears its intelligence on its sleeve, for daws to peck at. But I guarantee that it is worth pecking.