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DNA: Original Context and Themes

Go beyond the plot: the original 2008 National Theatre staging you must reference in Section A, and the themes that drive Dennis Kelly's DNA.

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What you'll cover

DNA in context 🎭

You already know the story of **DNA** by **Dennis Kelly**. Section A also rewards you for knowing its **themes** and its **original staging context**. Part (b)(i) of the question specifically asks you to **reference the original context**, so this is exam material, not just background.

Context vocabulary 📖

Learn these before you weigh the staging:

Match each context fact to its detail

  • First performed
  • Commissioned for
  • Writing date
  • Staging style
  • In 2008, at the National Theatre in London
  • The NT Connections youth project
  • The year 2007
  • End-on, with video projection

Why was it written?

DNA was originally commissioned for which project?

  • The National Theatre Connections project for young performers
  • A commercial West End musical season
  • A long-running television soap opera
  • A Hollywood film studio

How it was first staged 🎬

The original production used **end-on** staging, **video projection** and a **minimal set**, so the street, field and wood were suggested rather than fully built. Although written in **2007**, the play notably features **no mobile phones**, and Kelly wrote the characters so their **genders can be changed** to suit a cast.

Original staging

Select the TWO features true of DNA's original context and staging.

  • It was staged end-on with video projection
  • It features no mobile phones despite a 2007 writing date
  • It needs a cast of several hundred performers
  • It requires a fully built palace set

The big themes 🧵

DNA turns on a few linked themes: - **Gangs and belonging**: the pull of the group over each member. - **Bullying and cruelty**: how far a group will go. - **Individual versus collective responsibility**: the play's central moral question. - **Power and leadership**: how leadership shifts between figures.

Match each theme to its focus

  • Gangs and belonging
  • Bullying and cruelty
  • Collective responsibility
  • Power and leadership
  • The group's pull over each member
  • How far a group will go to hurt someone
  • Whether one person can be sacrificed for the many
  • How leadership passes from one figure to another

The core question

Kelly has described one question as the play's core. Which is it?

  • Whether it is right to sacrifice an individual for the good of the group
  • Whether teenagers should be allowed mobile phones
  • Whether school should be compulsory
  • Whether the countryside is safer than the city

The moral slide

An interactive activity.

Context and themes frame

DNA was written in _____ and first performed in 2008 for the National Theatre _____ project. It is staged _____, with a minimal set. Its central theme is the tension between the individual and the _____.

2007 Connections end-on group 1907 Broadway in-the-round teacher

Direct it for Section A

An interactive activity.

Context into choices

An interactive activity.