Kenrex: Under Milk Wood meets Sergio Leone, with astonishing results
Jack Holden – author and performer of the Olivier Award-nominated play Cruise, and acclaimed actor in such TV series as Marriage and Ten Percent – is an ever-rising star of stage and screen. His reputation can only be enhanced by the extraordinary one-man show Kenrex.
The play (which is premiering in Sheffield and is co-authored by Holden and Ed Stambollouian, who also directs) is based upon a true story that emerged in 1981 in the small town of Skidmore, Missouri. It tells the tale of the reign of terror visited upon the town by Ken Rex McElroy, a violent psychopath with a nasty predilection for underage girls.
Performing on designer Anisha Fields’s ingenious, minimalist set, Holden plays no fewer than 11 characters, ranging from prosecuting attorney David Baird, to pub landlady Ida Smith and hilariously greasy lawyer Richard McFadin. In its wonderfully bold evocation of the townsfolk and its compelling portrayal of violence and terror, the drama seems like an unlikely collision between Under Milk Wood and For a Few Dollars More.
Holden is helped in this ambitious endeavour by an audacious and atmospheric live soundtrack that is composed and performed by John Patrick Elliott. Imagine, if you will, a musical score created by the ghost of Johnny Cash in collaboration with the celebrated duo of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, and you will have something approximating Elliott’s remarkable combination of country and western with dystopian post-punk rock music.
Holden’s ability to evoke the unlovely town of Skidmore and its various inhabitants is nothing short of phenomenal. By the time we first encounter McElroy (who is, true to form, using his ferocious dog as a weapon of intimidation) we already have a remarkably vivid, bleakly comic sense of this town of guns, gossip and pick-up trucks.
The actor’s skill lies not only in characterisation or his chameleon-like ability to shift between characters, but also in his impressive, tremendously sustained energy. In one moment, we see Holden in the role of law officer Baird responding to questions from FBI agent Annette Parker (represented succinctly by a disembodied voice emanating from a reel-to-reel tape recorder). In another moment, however, the actor is transformed from measured lawyer into an entire barn-full of people enjoying a vigorous hoedown.
Throughout the production – which boasts perfectly attuned use of lighting and sound – the use of props and pieces of set is smart and economical. A rapidly assembled series of microphones on stands represent a gathering crowd.
A door frame on wheels, illuminated by a neon red thread, is turned 180 degrees as Holden shifts from the character inside the room to the one entering it. Most memorable is the chilling moment in which the actor metamorphoses from McElroy’s distressed, teenage wife Trena McCloud into the dangerous, raging anti-hero himself.
Astonishing in its conception and execution, Kenrex raises powerful moral questions about the meaning of justice. Most of all, it is a brilliantly theatrical, exhilarating and terrifying evocation of chaos.
Until November 16. Tickets: 0114 249 6000; sheffieldtheatres.co.uk