ajhlovestheatre

MASS

by Fran Kranz

directed by Carrie Cracknell

Donmar Warehouse, London – until 6 June 2026

running time: 1 hour 40 minutes no interval 

https://www.donmarwarehouse.com/events/mass/?instance-type=standard

Based on his own 2021 movie, Fran Kranz’s Mass, currently devastating audiences at the Donmar, is a powerful reminder of why the arts matter, of how they can speak to important issues and reflect healing, understanding light back on to them. It should be required viewing for every parent, and for everyone who still believes the gun laws in the USA are acceptable. It’s also unmissable for anyone who wants to see the kind of raw, humane performances that entirely transcend artifice and barely feel like acting.

Reminiscent of, and equally as impressive as, last year’s multi award-winner Punch, it’s about the aftermath of an almost unbearable tragedy and the turbulent road to acceptance and forgiveness. It’s an emotional rollercoaster that never feels manipulative or contrived, and you leave the theatre moved to wonder at what human beings are capable of finding in their hearts.

Set in an anteroom of an Episcopalian church in an unnamed American town, Mass focuses on an uneasy meeting between two couples: Gail and Jay (Lyndsey Marshal and Adeel Akhtar) lost their teenage son in a school shooting perpetrated by the son of Linda and Richard (Monica Dolan and Paul Hilton). What plays out is so much more complex, emotionally satisfying and dramatically rich than simply recriminations flying around and vengeance being invoked however. Kranz’s script, subtle yet meaty and marbled with welcome seams of humour and warmth, picks at the thorny issues of how much responsibility can be laid at a parents feet once their offspring reach a certain age, and also how well we ever truly know those closest to us.

Carrie Cracknell’s hyper-focussed, note-perfect staging, the table around which the couples sit, revolving barely perceptibly as they talk, confront, remember and feel, is technically much more sophisticated than it initially appears, but puts the central quartet front and centre, which is exactly where they need to be. Akhtar’s journey from chipper chumminess to raw anger rings completely true, and Hilton delivers a remarkable, magnetic portrayal of an urbane, professionally successful man on his guard but well informed yet utterly at sea with the horrors he has been exposed to.

It’s the mothers that really pierce your heart here though. I doubt I’ll ever forget the look on Dolan’s face as she all but pleads for the right to take some pride, some love in the memory of the child who wrote the tragedy in which they’re all now embroiled. I’ve always enjoyed Marshal’s performances but I’ve never loved her like I love her here as a beacon of damaged goodness and almost superhuman forgiveness. There’s a moment near the end when Gail and Linda embrace and it will break you, but in the best way.

The play’s title refers to a mass shooting but also to the religious music being rehearsed elsewhere in the building of the setting by an unseen choir. As the play draws to its conclusion, sunlight floods in through the overhead skylights, the doors are opened and the room is bathed in an almost celestial sonic chorale (composer Katrina Rose, sound designer Donato Wharton and Guy Hoare’s lighting all delivering world class work here). It could be cheesy or sugary but in practice it just feels like healing, hopeful, putting a theatrical button on a play that deals, unflinchingly, with the messy disarray of humanity. 

Everyone here is singing from the same hymn sheet (pun intended), from the superb supporting performances of Rochelle Rose as a guarded mediator, and the lovely, edgy dynamic between Amari Bacchus and Susie Trayling as a pair of contrasting church workers, to Anna Yates’ vividly realistic set and unshowy costumes. Everything about the production, performances and writing does exactly what it needs to be doing, and the ultimate effect is searing, transformative and unforgettable. They’re preaching to the choir in terms of the difficult subject of the right to bear arms, and I would imagine the long term goal of this brilliant production must be American stages where it will hit with even more white-hot force, although it’s hard to see how these central performances will ever be matched.

Unquestionably one of London theatre’s must-sees of 2026. Essential.