Kenrex, written by Jack Holden and Ed Stambollouian, performed by Holden, and directed by Stambollouian, has just crept into town on little cat’s feet. Once here? Wow, what a meow!
More than that, I know at least one Londoner very much hanging high on the theater grapevine there who’d heard nothing of it, even after it won an Olivier award for best actor and nominations for best play and best direction.
Subtitled “A True Crime Thriller,” it’s a genuine sleeper, carrying with it all the credentials to cause beehive-loud buzz that’ll keep it around for some, not unlike this just-ending 2025-2026 season’s earlier first-rate London export, Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York).
[Read Michael Sommers’ ★★★☆☆ review here.]
As a true-crime thriller, one challenge it presents before it’s through is which is the true crime or, more to the point, how many true crimes are committed before it stops cold? In other words, it’s a guessing-game, and when guessing-games are hot, good-time fun can be counted on.
When first introduced, Holden is Prosecuting Attorney David Baird, who’s come to Skidmore, Missouri, pop. 400. to get to the bottom of myriad problems caused by ubiquitous town bully Kenrex McElroy, described early on as “a man of few words” and later as “a brick wall.” Title figure Kenrex has Skidmore by the throat, but though charged with crimes all but daily, he‘s never spent a night in jail. Not once? Along the way, that’s discussed more particularly.
By the final Kenrex fade-out, it turns out that what’s basically at stake is justice according to the law. Or as it continues unfolding, what’s more at issue is justice in defiance of the law. Playwrights Holden and Stambollouian are intrigued by how the law is practiced and/or malpracticed and/or endured by many of the 22 characters speaking up start to finish.
Prominently included are Kenrex’s failure to spend even the one jail sleepover. That triumph is thanks to defense attorney Richard McFadin, as slick an ambulance chaser as they come. He regularly succeeds in having every charge against Kenrex dropped. Well, every one but the one leading to the Velcro-man’s eventual running out of the luck McFadin and he had so continually and successfully contrived.
Some of that luck, by the way, is also arranged by Kenrex’s 14-year-old bride Trena, whom he married, with McFadin looking on as the only one present at the ceremony. McFadin’s primary reasoning: a wife can’t testify against her husband. Better, she’s able to participate as a betrothed teenage moll.
So, the strengths and perhaps the more evident weaknesses of the law are the Horner-Stambollouian interests. They’re laid bare as Kenrex reaches its explosive finish, which won’t be revealed here to avoid ruining the several surprises popping. Maybe it’s sufficient to say that at long last marauder Kenrex is set for trial, a $60,000 bond keeping him from those jail overnighters. Postponements of that overdue trial date, however, doesn’t please the fed-up Skidmore dupes. And that’s enough said.
Holden, of course, plays everyone called on to speak in the 90 minutes Kenrex takes. And Stambollouian directs. Hold it. Directing may be the wrong word. Choreographs may be more apt, and Stambollouian is no-end adept at that, as is movement director Sarah Goldiing. Holden, you see, could be said to dance his way through the fast-paced-pay-close-attention proceedings.
If he’s had no training as a dancer, he’s for sure mastered the art, as from character to character he trips the light fantastic, while altering his voice on the slightest turn. Watching him manipulate a mobile ladder with maybe a 10-foot high perch as well as watching him pull, turn, and lean through a neon-trimmed mobile doorway is mesmerizing. He’s here, there, everywhere, showing not the least sign of fatigue.
From start to finish he’s joined stage left by John Patrick Elliott, who composed and plays an r-‘n’-r score on drums and electric guitar that has the effect of thickening the Kenrex atmosphere. Lighting and video designer Joshua Pharo also joins in on those thunder and lightning effects, as does sound designer Giles Thomas.
More on Holden’s accomplishments worth knowing about: Having been on the London stage for some time, he was represented quite recently at the prestigious Almeida where he stunningly adapted A Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst’s 2004 Man Booker prize-winning novel. With any luck that top-drawer production will follow him here.
For now, Holden and Stambollouian are authoritatively present, and that’s plenty.
Kenrex opened April 26, 2026 and runs through July 10 at the Lucille Lortel Theater. Tickets and information: kenrextheplay.com
