DNA (Oberon Modern Plays) (2024)

Not enough depth for such a harrowing story. Some of the characters were unrealistic and their development was too rushed. The story was quite exciting and had a lot of potential. I can see why it is studied in schools as the plot would grip teenagers but there doesn’t seem to be enough overall content to justify weeks of study.

I read this with a group of friends about a week ago. No. We all thought it was terrible. :-( I will try and forget it exists.

P.S. I read this a week ago and forgot to mark it in, sorry to people who follow me.

MAY 2015:
**4.5 STARS**
This was my final read of the play before my exam & this is by far my favourite text we have studied for English. I love the characters, the philosophical and ethical meanings, the idea of nature VS nurture & especially the way Kelly diverts the audience's expectations through the use of anti-pastoralism to communicate the misconceptions of Teenagers.

FEBRUARY 2015:
I Reread this for school & still really enjoyed it! However my favourite character is now Cathy! I think she is the most intricate & interesting!

NOVEMBER 2013:
I enjoyed this play a lot! It was really dark compared to what I was expecting, and had such an eerie feel throughout! My favourite character was Brian, as I loves his craziness and randomness!:')

I read this because it has just been added to the new GCSE specification for AQA and I wanted to see if I would want to teach it. Simply, I wouldn't.

It's one of those dreadful plays written about teenagers, for teenagers which has a glaringly obvious moral. I found the dialogue clumsy, the characters one dimensional and the plot uninspiring.

However, I'm clearly not the target audience and kids may enjoy it.

The scene where one of the main characters starts eating dirt is probably the low point - reading it, one can imagine some drama school show off hamming it up for maximum 'comic' effect.

Piffle.

‘DNA’ by Dennis Kelly is an intriguing story whose plot revolves around the complexities of persistent social interactions. Kelly elaborately portrays many intrinsic characteristics of a large-scale society by weaving them into the behavior of his fictional gang, presenting the gang as a micro-culture; as a subgroup, the gang is the exhibition of the large-scale society’s stratification i.e. one of the multiple micro-cultures that act as building block of the society. Throughout the plot, the author attempts to demonstrate patterns of behavior in his characters, relevant to the modern societal norms. He demonstrates the consequences of groupthink, that results in the inhibition of morals, arise of conformism, peer pressure etc.

DNA presents the issue that characters acting as a group demolishes the restrictions a person acting individually would usually impose on themselves. Resulting, is the person’s susceptibility to conformist groupthink. An example of this in the story is Mark and Jan’s retelling of the incident that lead to Adam’s presumed demise. Their repeated use of “we” implies that they were intoxicated with the power and freedom of consequence they felt, in acting as a group, “We’re having a laugh thinking what’s this nutter going to do next, we can make him do, we can make him do…”. After learning of Adam’s death, however, their fear of facing repercussions that mirror the intimidation and abuse they themselves executed on Adam, is revealed by their willingness to cover up the murder. This fear acts as proof to show that the bullies do have the ability to sympathize with Adam. Yet despite knowing of their wrongdoing, they continued to harass him. Why?

It would be plausible to explain that the characters persevered in abusing Adam, an outcast, in order to satisfy the social norm of conforming to the group, that hence benefits the perpetrator i.e. securing and solidifying their value as part of the group. Dennis Kelly shows through the reason of the bullying that lead to Adam’s murder, the dangers of conformism that is very possible and does exist in the present society. He shows the innate need of people to belong somewhere utterly outweighs their moralities and principles, causing them to take part in actions that do not represent their individual moral character (Adam too wanted to belong, but being an outsider to the group, he was instead acknowledged as a threat). An obvious example of this is Cathy’s constant seeking of approval from leader figures in the gang “We showed initiative… Richard we showed initiative.” Her morals are clearly non-existent at this point, where she willingly decides to frame an innocent man for murder.

Peer pressure in correlation to the executor’s status in the social hierarchy, is a major influencing factor in the norms and unwritten rules within a society. The relationship of Leah’s characters demonstrates this: A seemingly insignificant member of the group (whose voice does exist but goes unheard) becomes more of a member thanks to her relationship with Phil, the alpha of the gang. Her relationship with Phil provides her with benefits that characters more distant from Phil do not have, such as: exclusion from the murder cover-up plans, her value and status have augmented to claiming joint leadership and responsibility, etc. However, we see that she is no exception from conformity as her character begins to suffer from the indirect social pressure of simply being a member of the gang. Although Phil does not overtly attempt to force Leah’s conformity, he is still able to have an influence on her. Her guilt-devoid proclamation of murdering her hamster shows the crumbling of her morality. “It’s Jerry. I killed him. I took him out of his cage, I put the point of a screwdriver on his head and I hit it with a hammer.” The cause of this could be for seeking attention from Phil. However, in this climate of constant fear, it is more plausible that Leah killed her pet hamster, because her insecurities made her feel the need to mirror the atmosphere that she is surrounded by.

DNA is a play that paints a very vivid picture of our society. The sub-themes I have explored in previous paragraphs relating to the micro-culture in DNA, all link back to the idea of conformity. Evolution-wise, belonginess (of which the result is the necessity to conform) has been a part of the human nature since the formation of colonies and tribes. For survival it was necessary to belong to a group, to protect themselves and each other from animals, share resources, hunt huge mammoths for food (a near impossible solo feat). Humans retained this survival instinct of gathering in groups to the present day, and has shaped us into the inherently social creatures we are. However, the rather beautiful idea of depending on each other and aid the survival of everyone, has been manipulated and twisted into the unwritten threat that anything that is not perfectly the ideas, views or thoughts allowed by the society will be taken as offence. Worded alternatively: “Deviation from the norm will be punished” (Uncertain origin, incomplete quote 2017). Survival isn’t a choice for those who do not conform.
This is regrettably a prominence in our society: the bullying of boys that don’t invest their every second playing sport. The shame and assault hurled at girls who don’t attempt to go out of their way to appear pleasing to the eye. The prejudice at men who do not want to sweat away their lives constructing masonry but would rather run a flower shop or open a hair salon. The abuse directed at women that do not want to spend their whole lives in the kitchen taking care of the children and catering to every need and answering the beck and call of their man.

Dennis Kelly successfully highlights this grave problem in DNA (however he scratches but the bare surface of this immense and deeply-rooted issue), showing to the reader a very plausible consequence simply arising from the conformity of the group in the choice to bully Adam. Unwillingness to conform carries the risk of social-rejection, a fear so great in people, that they would commit murder. Say if they had not murdered Adam. However, had this abusive rejection of Adam joining their gang proceeded for longer, at a certain point, Adam’s fear of facing this rejection will very much outweigh that of the sweet release death would provide.

Uma obra terminada à pressa. Necessitava claramente de uma segunda parte para estabelecer o estado emocional das suas personagens. Em vez disso, deparamo-nos com um final que relata o estado de espírito destas figuras, quase que em off, num estilo diagético e não expositivo, como é natural do teatro. Foi um bocado cuspo na sopa, tendo em conta o balanço que a obra levava e o seu potencial.
Outro pormenor, os protagonistas são adolescentes e têm genicas engraçadas... É engraçado de ler! No entanto, custa-me a crer que um grupo que engendra um plano de ocultação de homicídio e executa-o semi perfeitamente, tenham às vezes momentos discursivos e não só, em que parece que temos fraldas e rocas na mão.

I found this really hard to rate! Overall I felt the play dropped off towards the end. However there were moments I was really interested in and some good monologues and scenes. I have seen part of this performed and thought it was incredibly done - so I am unsure if it is one of those plays which works when it’s on its feet and not as much when you read it.

i'm playing phil in this and he's basically just andrew minyard

yeh its ight

Read it in one sitting. Awful and tragic tale. Writing was at once terse and horrifying. Will need a more optimisic text to cheer me up.

A group of teenagers are bullying a boy at their school called Adam. They force him to do things he doesn’t want to do (like running across the motorway, letting them punch him, and eating leaves and dirt). One day their bullying goes to far, and while walking across a gate over a mine shaft whilst being pummeled with stones, Adam falls.

They all think that he’s dead, and go about making a plan to hide what they’ve done. Their plan goes slightly wrong when they frame an innocent postman for ‘kidnapping’ Adam. Brian, a member of their group, refuses to go to the police station and confirm that he saw the man alone with Adam. However, he ends up going because Phil threatens to throw him down the grate to ‘rot together’ with Adam.

Some of the teenagers find Adam living in the woods in a bush with a severe head injury. The teenagers have had to work together to sort things out, and this has brought them closer as friends. Now the opportunity presents itself to bring Adam back and own up. Phil sends some of them home and instructs Cathy to take Brian (who is not right in the head and doesn’t understand what he’s doing) to ‘play a game’ with Adam. The game involves Brian holding a plastic bag over Adam’s head until he suffocates.

Throughout the entire play, Leah has been trying to gain Phil’s attention, and he is constantly ignoring her. Now Phil turns to her for approval and puts his arm round her. She pushes him away and runs off. Now Phil realises that even Leah is rejecting him, he begins to think about what he has done, and spends the rest of the play by himself, refusing to talk to anyone.

All of the teenagers are affected by what they’ve done. It mentions that Cathy enjoys being on the T.V. crying about Adam’s death, and that she apparently cut off the finger of a younger child at the school. Two of the others have taken up shoplifting, Brian’s mental health has been getting worse, and Leah has moved away and is not heard from again.

this play has the biggest soft spot in my heart. having performed it at GCSE for drama and now to be reliving it again as cathy for a trip to edinburgh fringe, i find so much nostalgia throughout it and every time i step on stage or open the play, i am instantly excited despite the countless amount of times i’ve read it. the characters are as complex or as simple as you determine them to be and have a whole world of exploration to uncover underneath the text itself. the group dynamic is incredibly fraught yet so interesting in the way it constantly shifts with power and friendships. as well, the topic of ‘main character’ is one that is always interesting when it comes to this play and there are so many perspectives that can be taken from this, all which change again when you begin to perform this on a stage. every micro interaction and stage direction holds purpose and is as important as the next one on the page and it overall culminates in a macabre and shattering piece of theatre that explores the harsh realities of bullying and pack mentality alongside the argument of nature versus nature and the effects this has within every day contexts. i will forever love dennis kelly and this fabulous play <3

I have been studying this play in my GCSE Drama class and I think it’s safe to say that we all hate it. The interesting parts have about a page of dialogue dedicated to them and the boring parts get 3 page monologues. The storyline is mediocre at best and the main characters are insufferable. The only character I really like is Phil, he’s the reason it gets two stars instead of one, but even his dialogue is crammed into two massive monologues. He is written to seem almost stupid for the about the first half of the play and then we find out that he is ridiculously smart and it has so little time dedicated to it. He also goes from 0 to 100 far too quickly when he turns into some kind of murderous sociopath toward the end. Overall this book was unbelievably boring to read and I really wish I didn’t have to sit an exam on it in May.

This is the play our Y10 GCSE students are reading for their exam. I only taught half of it before my class changed, and I really did not enjoy it. I can understand why ours important to read, but I feel like Kelly has such a dreary view of teenagers and what terrible people they are, that it ruins the story for me. Do kids buckle under peer pressure? Absolutely. But accidentally harming someone and deliberately manipulating their death after harming them is a completely different ball game.

The only character that was tolerable by the end of the play was Leah, which is interesting because she spends most of the play being as annoying as possible.

I found this play absolutely abhorrent with no redeeming features. I should have put the play down when I read in the opening pages the line, "This play was commissioned by the National Theatre Education as part of its Connections project." Aimed at and based on 'young people' (scare quotes very necessary, here), this play contains all of the patronising clichés about teenagers known to man. It insults me so much because there is an abundance of decent and readily accessible English literature out there for 'young people' to study, that some half-digested contrived tripe written in ‘a modern teenage sociolect’ is surely never justified. I think I would refuse to teach this.

This script is really good and I got introduced to it through school as it is for our drama exam. it is really good because I think it'll capture everything well and hook the audience it is just full of really powerful scenes which are perfect for you to act out and there is a lot of cool hooking and captivating scenes. read it and have fun preforming...

It took a short time to understand the context, but I stuck with it. I'm glad I did. Lots of typical teenage angst expressed as the various disparate characters find a common ground as a result of a shocking event.

The ending is just as sudden, and unexpected.

This is a play, so expect a typical script, plenty of dialogue and in this edition, little in the way of stage direction.

This book was very deep because you could get inside of the character's heads. The character Brian I feel in love with. However, some characters were really quite psychopathic, which made them really quite scary.

i had to read this for gcse drama and i loved the idea of the plot but the ending left me feeling unsatisfied and with so many questions .I really wanted to like this book but after i read the last page i was a bit confused . i watched the play and enjoyed that a bit more than the book .

When performed with a committed group of drama students this play comes to life.

Read for school

leah is so me trying to fill silence (not the hamster bit)

Characters: Distinct, can afford more development. I like that there are no adults in this play. The straight-up intense power-play between the teen characters is fascinating. From a performing perspective, Leah and Phil are such an exciting duo. She makes so many decisions in this play and her monologues really invite the audience to think and feel with her; the dynamic between the two is also complicated and tips over at the end of Part Three.
Plot: Dark. It is disappointing and provoking that there is no justice served in the play. I think the lack of resolution is quite powerful in illustrating the aftermath of the incident.
Dialogue: I like the vagueness of Jan and Mark's dialogues appearing at the beginning of every part. The cross-cutting will be fun to perform, though difficult.
The play does suffer from some overall rushiness.

Perception of adolescence:
After reading other reviews, I do wonder if this play falls into the "evil kid" trope. As a young adult myself, I didn't have any issues with this play, but then I realized it was because I automatically accepted the context of the play as an alternate, distant, and constructed universe. I assumed the dark side of these teenagers was heightened for dramatic effect, which made the play a bit more fantastical than naturalistic but didn't prevent me from engaging with and reflecting on the story. However, considering this text is widely learned by students around the world, I do wonder what it would do to teenagers' self-perception - it is worrying and damaging that this is often a perception shaped and reinforced by adults. I also wonder if it is the best play to study/teach regarding its message, for it has displayed a lot of issues but has not offered any solutions.

Had to read this for drama class in school. Thought that it was okay. I felt that the characters were very different and were all quite interesting, although were not developed very well (probably because the play itself was so short).

When I got to part three, I felt that it was really starting to get good and interesting, but then it ended like 10 pages later? It was such an abrupt ending and I was more than a little confused as to why the author chose to end it at the point that he did. I feel that even if the story were a little bit longer, I would have given it a higher rating. I just feel that the ending was a bit rushed and nothing was really resolved. It feels like there were more pages that I just didn't have in my copy as the ending wasn't really resolving anything and I had lots of questions. (Which I guess could be a good thing if this were like a series, but it is just a standalone.

I totally called the bit about Adam from the start. When his friends were like, "Oh, he died because he fell in a hole" I was just like 'What?' Maybe you should check that he's actually dead and not just unconscious or something. SO, when he came back into the story, I was not at all surprised.

I was also hoping to see more of an interaction between John-Tate and Richard as it seemed that they had a rivalry and I would have liked to see it develop further.

A very interesting read.

I was very skeptical about reading a play used to death in GCSE Drama and somehow I managed to avoid it in school.

I enjoyed it definitely the more it went on. The repetitive dialogue got quite cliché and annoying at points. Like I get the characters are young but I just feel like this style is over used. The characters kinda felt a little under written in parts, I didn't see a massive point in some characters even being there.

I loved Brian and Adam. These are two characters I think would be really cool to play. Meaty characters who have clear depth and complexities. I just wish every character had the same level of detail.

I kinda wished the ending had more weight to it. Feel like it just...ends. And that's it? But then again, I suppose that's the point. There's no Hollywood ending, people just move on; which is the harder thing to do.

Despite the criticism, I can clearly see how this play pioneers the way for a lot for younger people engaging with theatre for the first time which is always a win. It's an interesting story with young people that makes choices. I just wish it fully realised said decisions.

Yeah, it's not bad man.

Vague descriptions of a murder incident by teenagers that allow lots of imagination and filling in the blank by yourself.

Each act with the recurring beginning of Jan and Mark's introduction, Leah's big monologues, and big group scenes allow completely different directions and realizations.

Act 1: The revelation of an murder incident of a classmate Adam, and Phil coming up with a plan to plant it on an imaginary "fat postman".

Act 2: The group finding out that an actual existing postman has been accidentally wrongfully accused of the crime.

Act 3: The group finding Adam alive in the woods, which threaten their safety. Adam seems to have gone crazy, allegedly "living happily" in the woods, so Phil suggests that they don't report Adam's existence and leave him in the woods.

Act 4: Through Richard's narration, the audience finds that everyone in the group has gone to live their each lives, and Phil seems to be absent-minded, staying in the field for a long time.

I have mixed feelings. I liked the idea of the plot, but it wasn't explored enough to feel satisfying. I also think because of the way the dialogue is written (constant unfinished sentences, people cutting others off, overlapping, etc.) that it might be more impactful seeing a production of it as opposed to merely reading it. I think some of the exchanges would be fast-paced and riveting to hear. Some of the characters were interesting but some seemed unrealistic. I can see why this would be fun for teenagers to perform, but I didn't find any of the characters all that redeeming. This play felt somewhat like it wanted to do for teenagers what The Secret History did for young adults. But it just didn't get there for me. I wanted it to delve a little deeper into character and give more depth to the situation.

I found this play interesting and shocking at times. When it was revealed that Adam was still alive I was shocked. I had suspected that Phil knew something the others didn’t so was thrown off guard when this was what had actually happened to the characters.
I enjoyed the way this play was laid out, the scenes at the beginning of each part were repetitive but let you know a new scene was happening and there was going to be a change in the situation.
I also enjoyed seeing Phil and Leahs relationship evolve, the way the two characters interacted was mostly coming from Leah's side. But when Leah moves away, we see that Phil is deeply affected by this, even though he appeared not to care much about Leah.
I can see this play being really good for teenagers to perform as it has a range of interesting characters to play.

To be completely honest, I randomly heard about this play on social media and decided to give it a go. I don't think I, a 28 year old woman, am the right target audience for it. I can see why it is studied in school as the use of language and dialogue is interesting and from that angle, I can see good discussions come out. It does capture the panic state that the characters would be in well and overall the conversations they would have well. The characters interrupt each other on page and finish sentences and the tempo is quite well done. With good actors on stage, this can be quite good.

However, I found the whole thing quite...bizarre, I guess? At times, it felt like it was trying to be too edgy just for the sake of being edgy and not really adding to the story.

All in all, I can see why people who like the play, like it and I can see why a lot of people don't.

Read this is for high school many years ago, and I really enjoyed it. It was another darker book/play to study and had a really interesting concept. My main complaint was it was way too short to bring any great depth to the characters. They were pretty generic takes on different personality traits, which at times brought down the plot. Though since it was written to be a play, it might come across differently in how the characters are acted which could give them the needed depth by their expressions both in the background and while speaking. Again I found the plot to be great, just the characters don't read that well.
Also RIP Leah's hamster. Something from the book I will never have the pleasure of forgetting.