Summary
Featuring eleven on-stage characters, all of whom are adolescents, Dennis Kelly’s four-scene play DNA takes place in three locations: a street, a field, and a wood (forest).
Scene One opens with Mark and Jan, two teenagers, discussing someone’s death. Jan asks if Mark is telling her the person is “proper dead.” Mark confirms there is no mistake: he is dead; it’s not a joke. The quick back and forth ends with Jan realizing she doesn’t know what they’re going to do.
The action moves to Leah and Phil in a field. Phil is silently eating ice cream while Leah carries on a one-sided conversation with him. Interrupting herself frequently, Leah wonders aloud if Phil is thinking negative things about her, such as that she talks too much. She tells Phil he isn’t perfect either.
Leah wonders aloud if she disgusts Phil. She eventually accuses him of being scared. She says she is scared—she isn’t immune to “the fear that everyone here lives in.” She says everyone is scared, so they need each other. Before Phil has spoken, Mark and Jan enter. Mark says he and Jan need to talk to them.
The action moves to a wood (forest), where Lou, John Tate, and Danny discuss whether they are “fucked.” Lou says they are; John Tate insists everything is fine. He corrects himself, saying the situation is “tricky.” John Tate reminds Lou that Lou isn’t scared of anyone at school because John Tate has made it so everyone respects him. Danny says he can’t get mixed up in it—he plans to become a dentist.
John Tate and Lou ignore Danny as Lou panics and John Tate suggests that while the situation is serious, it’s not as bad as they’re making it out to be. Lou says, “He’s dead.” Danny continues talking about how dead people aren’t part of his plans to become a dentist. John Tate asks Lou to stop talking about how he is dead. John Tate says the word “dead” is banned—a new rule. John Tate says they have to stick together and trust each other.
Richard, Cathy, and Brian enter the scene. Cathy grins while Brian cries. Richard says, “He’s dead.” John Tate tells him not to use the word. Cathy says, “This is mad [crazy], eh?” She adds that it’s quite exciting—better than ordinary life. John Tate threatens to hurt Richard for saying 'dead.'
John Tate says that he has been trying to “keep everyone together” since he came to the school. He reminds his friends that he has made things better for them, and now everyone wants to be them and come out to the woods. Richard tells John Tate that he shouldn’t threaten him. John Tate asks what Richard is going to do about it. Danny points out that Richard is “just saying,” prompting John Tate to ask if Danny is on Richard’s side.
Cathy tells Danny to shut up, and Danny responds with the same statement. John Tate warns Danny not to tell Cathy to shut up. John Tate asks again if Danny is on Richard’s side now. Richard says there are no sides. John Tate tells Danny that if he’s on “a side,” he’s not on John Tate’s side. John Tate says he thought they had gotten over the silliness of sides. Richard says they have. John Tate says he thought they were mates now. Richard says they are. John Tate tells Danny that if he’s on a side, he can only be on his own side, because Richard and John Tate are mates now. John Tate warns Danny that it’s “very silly and dangerous” to be on one’s own side.
Danny says that he is on John Tate’s side, and he wants to keep calm and say nothing. John Tate turns his attention to Cathy, asking what she’s talking about. He makes her say that she is on Richard’s and John Tate’s and Danny’s side. Lou confirms he is too. John Tate says that only leaves Brian, calling him a “crying little piece of filth.”
Analysis
In the opening dialogue of DNA, Dennis Kelly introduces the template that will mark the start of each of the play’s four scenes. Meeting together in a setting simply described as “a street,” Mark and Jan engage in a clipped staccato exchange of dialogue. Speaking cryptically, the teens discuss the latest development in the ongoing crisis of Adam’s presumed death. With this simple template, Kelly invites the audience’s curiosity and sets the play’s unique blend of dark comedy and disturbing thriller.
In contrast to Jan and Mark’s seemingly even-paced, balanced means of conversing, Leah seems to do all the talking in her relationship with Phil. In the first field-set scene featuring the two characters, Leah shows her volubility as Phil silently indulges in snacking, apparently ignoring what Leah is saying. Kelly introduces the major theme of fear as Leah comments on what perceives to be a pervading ambient terror in their teenage social environment. Unbeknownst to Leah, that ambient fear has transformed into a fear that is upfront and direct as her friends grapple with the consequences of their bullying.
In the play’s third setting in the woods, several other characters panic over Adam’s presumed death. Despite the gravity of the situation, Kelly injects humor into the story with John Tate’s persistent attempts to deny the seriousness of what they have done. John Tate’s childish naivety is on display as he attempts to “ban” the word 'dead,' as though the group can avoid dealing with Adam’s presumed death if they merely pretend it hasn’t happened.
The theme of sadism emerges when Cathy makes her entrance with a grin on her face. Although Brian is crying and the others are panicking, Cathy smiles as she comments on the excitement of the crisis. In this way, she betrays the perverse pleasure she derives not only from Adam’s death but from the prevailing mood of despair among her friends.
Kelly introduces the theme of conspiracy with John Tate’s comments about his efforts to “keep everyone together”—a coded way of saying they must protect each other by lying about what has happened to Adam. The theme of peer pressure arises as he coerces his friends into pledging their allegiance to him and to the group as a whole. However, he identifies Brain—whom he calls a “piece of filth”—as potentially the weakest link in their burgeoning conspiracy.
