Theatre review: KENREX

My online Show of the Year 2021 and even better live in 2022, nobody could accuse Cruise of lacking in ambition, but that's how its creator Jack Holden's follow-up makes it feel. Less obviously personal but with much more of an epic scope, KENREX takes Holden's monologue-with-songs format and applies it to a true crime documentary, one of those violent stories of isolated and twisted Americana. The isolated place in question is Skidmore, a Missouri town so small and remote it doesn't have a sheriff - if anyone makes a 911 call it'll take an hour for the police to turn up. This is something that local bully Ken Rex McElroy has taken advantage of throughout the 1970s, and his reign of terror has included violence, physical and sexual assault, arson, killing pets, theft of livestock, and general menace and intimidation of the town's population.

He's been taken to trial several times but never convicted: While his dodgy attorney Richard Gene McFadin ties the courts up in tricks and technicalities, the prosecution witnesses have an uncanny tendency not to show up to testify. After a decade of increasingly dangerous behaviour and no help from the legal system, on the 10th of July 1981 the townspeople take matters into their own hands.

Holden uses as his narrator David Baird, the County Prosecutor who was the last to try and take Ken Rex down by legal means, and who a few years later is being interviewed by one of his superiors as the reverberations of these events are finally being wound up. From here he jumps into all the major characters in the town - from the shopkeepers, bar owner, preacher and mayor, to their antagonists, the squeaky voiced, prancing lawyer McFadin, Ken's wife Trena (whom he groomed as a child and forcibly married so she couldn't legally testify against him for the statutory rape) and of course the rumbling, sinister Ken Rex himself.

Holden co-writes the script with director Ed Stambollouian, and if there's one thing the play doesn't manage to do, it's convince in its attempt to turn judgement on the people of Skidmore who took matters into their own hands: Holden has created such a menacing figure in Ken Rex and such a relentless feeling of dread that it's hard not to see where they're coming from. The only area where they really feel judged is in their treatment of Trena, whom they left to her fate in the hope her new husband would focus his attentions on her instead of them (a major misjudgement as it turns out.) There's a whole other play to be written on what this says about humans' ability to let others suffer in their place.

What really can't be forgiven is the legal system that was so easily manipulated to throw out dozens of cases on technicalities, and the lawyer who makes Saul Goodman look like Atticus Finch, happily turning a blind eye to the intimidation his client is obviously carrying out when the courts aren't looking, in return for big payments (cash only.) Loopholes like the law that protects a man from being testified against by his wife, but doesn't prevent him from forcibly marrying an underage girl to take advantage of that law, are an even bigger villain than the lumbering bully of the title.

But whatever the moral takeaways from the story, KENREX is predominantly a jaw-droppingly effective thriller, as Our Town turns into Fuente Ovejuna. Once again the play integrates songs by John Patrick Elliott, who also returns as the onstage musician and takes a more active part this time around - as well as playing all the instruments he also sings the songs, a country-rock soundtrack that along with Giles Thomas' sound design relentlessly pumps up the adrenaline. (The songs are already available on CD and Spotify, Benjamin Button take note.)

Although it's moved beyond the monologue as showcase of an actor's talents there's no question KENREX does that as well, with Holden's vocal range from squeaks to guttural rumbles really standing out - Ian raved at the interval about how convincingly he jumps from psychopath to nice old shop lady and back. With Sarah Golding as movement director, he also bounds around Anisha Fields' set (the design conceit centres on multiple microphone stands building up the crowd of people being brought to life) while Joshua Pharo's lighting also contributes to the building frenzy. Starting in Sheffield, the incredibly confident production clearly has transfer ambitions beyond the Elephant and Castle, and its energy levels could certainly fill a bigger space. As for Holden himself, whether he'll be the next actor to follow the Waller-Bridge/Coel/Scott/Bailey pipeline from London theatre's secret to global obsession is as much down to luck as anything else, but it definitely feels like it's time for it.

KENREX by Jack Holden, Ed Stambollouian and John Patrick Elliott is booking until the 15th of March at Southwark Playhouse's Large Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan.