DNA Study Guide

Dennis Kelly grew up in North London in a large family. At age 16 he left school to work at Sainsbury’s, a British grocery chain, and discovered acting and writing after joining an amateur theater group at the Barnet Drama Centre. Kelly later graduated from Goldsmiths College at the University of London with a First Class Honours degree in Drama and Theatre Arts. Over the last two decades, Kelly has established himself as a renowned and prolific writer for theatre, film, and television. Kelly’s best-known plays include Debris, Love and Money, and DNA, and his book for the 2010 Royal Shakespeare Production’s reimagining of Roald Dahl’s Matilda netted him recognition from the Olivier Awards and the Evening Standard Awards. The production moved from London’s West End to Broadway in 2013, winning five Tony Awards—including the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical. Kelly’s plays are often described as dark, violent, and introspective, usually posing large and difficult questions to the audience.

Written in the first decade of the new millennium, DNA reflects early-aughts anxieties about the roles of violent media, gang activity, and millennial apathy in contemporary society. The pressures of life on the city streets and the process of entering adulthood in post-industrial London are intense, and the characters’ attitudes varyingly reflect a blend of serious apprehension and disconnected or even dissociated ennui. Characters like Phil and Cathy who, when faced with the need to cover up a murder, are able to come up with a plan on the fly, may be Kelly’s commentary on the nature of mainstream media that focuses on procedural murder investigations and true-crime exposes—a market that has only become more saturated in the decade since the play’s premiere. The characters’ dangerous school environment also reflects Dennis Kelly’s own working-class upbringing. City youth are not afforded access to the posh schools, the traditions of British high society, or the pastoral calm of country life—their environment, Kelly uses the play to show, demands ruthlessness, detachment from displays of emotion or weakness, and solidarity even in the worst of situations.

Several contemporary plays by both British and American playwrights channel the same anxieties about bullying, peer pressure, and teen violence that DNA does. Simon Stephens, a prolific British playwright whose best-known works include theatrical adaptations of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and The Seagull, wrote a play called Punk Rock which premiered in London in 2009—just months after DNA made its London debut. Punk Rock follows a group of private-school students preparing for their college entrance exams, taking a look at the social, academic, and societal pressures that slowly deteriorate the students’ lives until the play reaches a devastating and violent climax. Kenneth Lonergan’s This Is Our Youth premiered in New York City in 1996—a decade earlier and a continent away—but explores similar themes and issues. The play also focuses on social dynamics, peer pressure, and anxieties about coming of age and leaving childhood behind. Enda Walsh’s Chatroom concerns a group of British teens who join a chatroom and find that the conversation takes a dark turn, with peer pressure and bullying bleeding through their screens and into their lives. Both Chatroom and DNA premiered as part of the National Theatre of London’s “Connections” program—a yearly festival of short plays written by emerging and established playwrights. The Connections program often features plays that deal with social issues facing teenagers. The festival began in 1997 and still takes place each year. Renowned playwrights like Wole Soyinka, Bryony Lavery, and David Mamet have contributed works to the festival over the years.