DNA: School Edition (Oberon Modern Plays)

Product Information

Can I just say John, we haven't done anything But if we have done a thing, which we haven't, but if have than we did it together! Whatever we did, we did. Me and Phil, It wasn’t just Phil. Finally, Kelly uses his brightest character to get us to contemplate "what is the nature of being human?" Scene 1: Mark and Jan discuss that someone is ‘dead’ and this throws the audience into the middle of the action. Oh yeah he wanted to be part of the gang. I mean everyone wants to be a part of the gang but he wanted it so bad he even ate the leaves. Big fist full of leaves, that’s not even the half of it! You know, being bullies? Within a group? Or if it’s a constant theme of human history. Does that bother you Phil?

He gets us to frame an innocent person, gets someone to identify the body and kill Adam when he turns up alive. DNA was developed ten years ago as a part of National Theatre’s Connections Scheme, which commissions playwrights to write plays for young performers aged fourteen to eighteen. Then we plant one of Adams jumpers, with the D.N.A of a random stranger on it near the scene of the crime, and we put them off our scent. And Someone pegged a stone at him. Not to hit him, just for the laugh and you should have seen his face. I mean the fear the, It was so... You had to laugh right? The expression, the fear. It appears Cathy has shown initiative. She's managed to find a fat balding postman with bad teeth and rubbed to rub his DNA on the jumper.'Scene 4: Leah speaks about bonobos being our nearest relatives. ‘Chimps are evil. They murder each other…they kill and sometimes torture each other to find a better position within the social structure’ (p26). This could be seen as the author’s voice coming through about how he feels about the nature of bullies.

Scene 1: The audience learn that someone is ‘not going’…this is a reference to Brian not going to the police station Oh great! Now you're talking to Cathy?! Like, I'm not, I'm not, because you don't like what I say? And now it's Cathy?! Are we to be like Chimps? Or our closest relatives, the sociable Bonobos? Kelly seems to imply that we can choose to be one or the other.' Scene 2: Leah is still trying to gain Phil’s attention. This time she talks about the nature of happiness. She shows him a Tupperware container and says it is Jerry. She describes how she has killed him.What you thinking? No! Don't tell me... Sorry! that's a stupid, that’s such a stupid... You can tell me you know? You can talk to me? By the bridge, last week. A fat Caucasian male, Five-nine say, with thinning hair and a postman's uniform. Sad eyes... Softly spoken. Cathy doesn't care, she's too busy running things. You wouldn’t believe how thingshave got. Phil, she's insane! She cut a first years finger off! That’s what they say anyway. Doesn't that bother you? Aren’t you bothered?! I sometimes think you're not human. I sometimes think I wonder, what would you do if I killed myself right here in front of you? What would you do? What would you do Phil?! I kind of wonder if people have always behaved like this?

No matter what the circumstance, you know the gang will defend itself. Not just from outsiders, but from itself. Weak leaders are seen as threats. And they constantly have to be on the lookout for challenges. Defiantly a victim of that. When the authorities believe the lie, Phil is embraced as leader of the group, and everything seems to settle down. The dirty secret appears to bring them all closer.'But as the lies begin to escalate the group goes with it. And allow the man to be framed and it appears to work until.' Everything is much better though, I mean really it is! Everyone's working together, they're a lot happier. For years we thought that Chimps were our closest living relative but now they're saying it’s Bonobos. Go and eat the earth somewhere? Shall we eat the earth? I wonder what the earth tastes like? What do you think? Do you think it tastes earthy? A group of teenagers do something bad, really bad, then panic and cover the whole thing up. But when they find that their cover-up unites them and brings harmony to their once fractious lives, where is the incentive to put things right.