Review: Kenrex, The Other Palace

We’ve been led to expect a monster, but the man who walks on stage looks entirely average: medium build, neat brown suit, surgical side parting. He is public prosecutor David Baird (Jack Holden), and he is being interviewed about his prosecution of a violent local thug, ‘Kenrex’ McElroy. In relating his side of the story, Baird becomes our narrator and guide to the town and townspeople of Skidmore, Missouri, with Holden playing every single character. 

Holden glides from one pen portrait to the next, or juggles conversations between characters, with an ease and confidence not seen since Sarah Snook’s Dorian Gray, except that in this case, he doesn’t have a costume for support, so it’s all down to tone of voice, intonation, and physicality. When Kenrex finally enters the story, Holden’s portrayal is astonishing. He shifts into an ape-like posture, with one arm crooked and the other hanging loose. His voice is deep and gravelly, and when he grunts in response to questions, he seems more animal than human. As soon as he adopts the pose, he seems to grow in size and menace. 

If Kenrex had little more to recommend it than Holden’s performance, it would be impressive. But that performance sits at the heart of exceptional, and exceptionally cohesive, stagecraft that creates tension, theatricality, and the image of small-town America. 

Anisha Fields’ set appears simple: perspex booth on one side, a small stage for multi-instrumentalist John Patrick Elliott on the other side, and in the middle a high platform with a projection wall. But when a wheeled staircase comes into play, along with multiple mic stands and an illuminated doorway, it becomes a moving feast; every character has his or her own environment, and every scene is visually fresh. Sarah Golding’s movement direction has Holden gliding, dancing, and leaping from scene to scene, from prop to prop, with never a dull transition and with amazing precision. 

Sound, lighting and props are not supporting actors here, but main characters. A barroom brawl breaks out in a cacophony of flashing light and darkness, loud noise and seeping haze. Microphones are used to represent local people, and at an angry town hall, the spotlight on each microphone flickers to indicate attendees speaking at and over one another. The headlights of a pick-up truck blaze angrily out of the darkness, in a way that is no less menacing for being a cliché. It is unapologetically unsubtle and it takes us with it, even as we can see the moving parts. 

The same is true of Elliott’s Americana musical accompaniment, which transports us to the Midwest and increases the tension. In the unlikely event that attention wanders from Holden, there is Elliott in the corner, switching guitars, drumming, or pressing buttons for pre-records. Like a Richard Rogers building, this production delights in showing us its workings, and director Ed Stambollouian, has done a magnificent job of orchestrating it so that all the parts work together entirely cohesively and to such theatrical effect. 

Writers Holden and Stambollouian have chosen a true story with a gripping sequence of events, unexpected twists, moral ambiguity, and themes that resonate beyond the world of true crime. It expresses the impotent rage of the persecuted and asks what justice looks like when the judicial system fails, but it also invites sympathy with Ken Rex, the bully, inviting us to weigh his impoverished upbringing and various disadvantages in the balance. And in a conclusion that echoes current politics, Kenrex seems to suggest that only losers play by the rules, while the vulnerable get screwed. It’s an absorbing, visually arresting, and thought-provoking piece of theatrical storytelling. 

Writers: Jack Holden & Ed Stambollouian
Composer: John Patrick Elliott
Director: Ed Stambollouian
Set & Costume Designer: Anisha Fields
Lighting & Video Designer: Joshua Pharo
Sound Designer: Giles Thomas
Movement Director: Sarah Golding

Kenrex plays at The Other Palace until Sunday 1 February.