It was easy to forget it was a two-person show (four if you count the recorded voices provided by Kelly Burke and James Sobol Kelly) in a story that involved a considerable number of residents in Skidmore, Missouri, officially a city but with the population of a small town. Its population has decreased since a generation ago – the 1980 US Census recorded 437 residents, and by the 2020 census this had reduced to 245. It was not the sort of community that needed a permanent base for emergency services in the town itself, or so it would seem. This ended up being a contributing factor in Kenneth Rex McElroy (1934-1981) being charged with various offences but never convicted: by the time the police had arrived at a crime scene, Kenrex, as McElroy was largely known, apart from friends and acquaintances who knew him as Ken, had long departed.
He had an astute attorney, too, Richard McFadin (1924-2012), who managed to serve his client well, using legal loopholes and technicalities. David Baird, meanwhile, had become prosecuting attorney of Nodaway County in 1981, shortly after graduating from law school, a position he held until 2010. He was advised to take the job because, he was told, “nothing exciting ever happens” in Nodaway County. But then there was Kenrex, and his numerous and frequent felonies. The play is remarkably balanced, and simultaneously does not sit on the fence – Kenrex was undoubtedly a Very Bad Man, but he was nonetheless someone’s son, someone’s husband, someone’s father.
He had numerous children with numerous women. Trena McCloud (1957-2012) was someone he started having relations with while she was still a schoolgirl: her parents were, naturally, against the relationship. Kenrex responded by burning the family house down – the parents survived – and shooting their dog dead. To get out of being charged with statutory rape, to which Trena was the sole witness, Kenrex divorced his then wife and married Trena. He was brutal, but he was far from an idiot – the stories of his methods of dodging the criminal justice system went on. And on. But it had to, in order to demonstrate the palpable feeling within the local community that it couldn’t continue, and something had to be done.
Jack Holden’s performance has to be seen to be believed – switching seemingly effortlessly between one character and another, embodying a deformed Kenrex, an apparently effeminate McFadin, a grocery store owner and his wife, Skidmore’s mayor, a farmer and his wife, and more. Each person is more than sufficiently distinct and instantly recognisable when they re-enter the dialogue in a later scene. John Patrick Elliott’s live music has a degree of predictability in that it swells in the buildups to pivotal moments in the narrative, but is nonetheless varied and enjoyable, even when he was singing about how much of a menace Kenrex was. One works out what is going to happen early on in the show, but that doesn’t make the storytelling any less compelling.
A multilayered narrative goes beyond a presentation of factual events, and asks the audience, without being in any way preachy, to consider the vigilante response to a reign of terror from all angles. A highly energetic and gripping production with plenty of food for thought. Most shows with multiple characters performed by a sole actor tend to present only one perspective, usually that of the narrator and/or central character. This one perfectly demonstrates that it doesn’t always have to be the case.
Review by Chris Omaweng
July 10th, 1981, Missouri. Smalltown bully, Ken Rex McElroy rules Skidmore with an iron fist. His ten year reign of terror has involved theft, intimidation, assault, abduction and attempted murder — but, thanks to his slippery defence attorney and the rusty cogs of the American justice system, Ken Rex has never spent a night behind bars.
But, when Ken shoots pillar of the community, greengrocer Bo Bowenkamp and leaves him for dead, the good folk of Skidmore decide that enough is enough. If the courts won’t bring Ken to heel, they will.
Written by Jack Holden and Ed Stambollouian
Performed by Jack Holden
Music composed and performed by John Patrick Elliott
Voice of Annette Parker – Kelly Burke
Voice of David Baird – James Sobol Kelly
Set and Costume Designer – Anisha Fields
Lighting and Video Designer – Joshua Pharo
Sound Designer – Giles Thomas
Movement Director – Sarah Golding
Katy Lipson for Aria Entertainment and Sheffield Theatres with TRW Production and Wolk Transfer Company present
KENREX
Southwark Playhouse Borough
14 February to 15 March 2025
