Jack Holden, co-writer and solo performer in KENREX, which has reached London after receiving positive reviews in Sheffield, is quite a talent.
His previous show, Cruise, grew from a digital production to a run in the West End and showed an inventive and physical performer, brilliant and fearless. It set a high bar for his next show.
Southwark Playhouse’s Large space has the feel of unease as we head in along a stretch of black flooring into a space of props, a screen, a platform, and wooden hoardings. We are taken back to the small town of Skidmore, Missouri, with a tiny population where everyone knows everyone’s business.
Holden, and co-writer/director Ed Stambollouian, have taken a true crime story from 1981 and made it into something that pushes at the boundaries of what theatre can do and be.
With a pulsing live Americana soundtrack from John Patrick Elliott (who has a voice as powerful as the devil and who recirds as The Little Unsaid), and superb sound design from Giles Thomas, we are surrounded by voices, overlays, and other tricks to keep us listening.
Skidmore is a town in crisis, under the control of a bully in the imposing shape and slow drawl of Kenneth Rex McElroy. He’s in his mid-40s and feared by most for his catalogue of crimes. With the help of a showy lawyer, Richard McFadin, he is never convicted.
KENREX offers the story in chapters (The Town, The Lawyer, The Killer, etc). It begins with an emergency phone call reporting a murder, then creates a community of sharply drawn characters on stage, all played by Holden.
But that’s only part of what makes this show a strong contender for the best of the year. The energy and buzz both on stage and within the audience build from that first moment. Joshua Pharo’s lighting allows a deep red to flood the stage, a pair of car headlights to dazzle, a doorway to glow.
As state prosecutor David Baird, a ‘city boy’ new to Missouri, is interviewed by the FBI, a startling tale of small town USA takes hold and grabs you right from the start. It is exhilarating to experience, and when one performer can morph into an elderly butcher, a teenage girl, a tough lady bar owner, a peacock lawyer, the town Romeo, and more, you have to take notice.
KENREX offers excellent movement direction (Sarah Goulding), set design (Anisha Fields), and video work (Joshua Pharo) that places you in the wildness of the Rust Belt, in a town and hour away from law enforcement and at the end of its rope.
It doesn’t offer judgement, just the facts. Ken Rex is a monster, with charges from cattle rustling and assault to statutory rape and attempted murder on his slate, but he is also a man.
By the time the inevitable happens, depicted in a circle of microphones and a rising unease, we are as torn as the ‘city boy’ observer. We leave feeling as if we have witnessed something truly remarkable: the power of theatre to move and shake, excite and startle.
As the video credits roll (it’s that kind of show) and the bass lines pulse, we head back out into the street dazzled by what live performance can do in small spaces.
5 stars.
KENREX continues at Southwark Playhouse Borough until 15 Mar with tickets here. Tickets are selling extremely fast, so don’t delay.
Image credit: Manuel Harlan