Review: MASS, Donmar Warehouse

At the end of Mass, currently celebrating its world stage premiere at London's Donmar Warehouse, my visibly moved son says, "That's the best play I'll see this year." And he's absolutely right.

Director Carrie Cracknell's incredible interpretation of American actor-turned-writer Fran Kranz's stage script based on his 2021 independent film is simple, but also searingly powerful.

"Why do I want to know about your son? Because he killed mine." These words reverberate around a room in an Episcopalian church – a safe space for two bereaved couples to sit and talk about a mass school shooting of 10 pupils by Hayden who then killed himself – that occurred six years earlier and has destroyed all of their lives.

Gail and her husband Jay (Adeel Akhtar) have suggested this meeting on the advice of Gail's therapist. After a long interval, the other now separated couple, Linda (Monica Dolan) and Richard (Paul Hilton), have agreed to meet.

Tension is palpable from the start with Judy (Susie Trayling), who helps run the church, and Brandon (Amari Bacchus), a boy about the same age of the teenagers killed in the calamity, prepare the room for the meeting. How do you place the table in the room so it doesn't look too formal? Is it too obvious placing a box of tissues in the table's centre? Will anyone want snacks or coffee?

Rochelle Rose's composed Kendra is also present as an unspecified representative of Linda and Richard, to ensure everything's in hand. She then retreats to another part of the church.

We are drip-fed details about the couples once a trembling Linda and commanding Richard are left alone in the room with Gail and Jay, both more casually dressed (blue jean jacket, checked shirt, hair up in a messy bun).

In his debut play, Franz takes his time letting us know who are parents of the perpetrator Hayden and who are parents of victim Evan, ramping up the tension further. He also seeds clues and wrong-foots the audience, making us question our own assumptions and values.

This is a very brave production set in only one room, with very little physical movement. There are no snazzy lighting effects and no snappy choreography. What it comes down to is a thoughtful script, excellent direction and brilliant performances from all of the actors. They're all commendable ­– although Dolan is particularly phenomenal as a trembling wreck about to fall apart at any second.

There's also very clever use of a revolve, slowly rotating the couples sitting at the table so we see key speakers when they're talking and others while reacting. Sometimes the revolve settles in one place for a period of time, so we fully engage with a character while giving a monologue about memories of a child, the anger they've felt or guilt they've experienced for not doing more.

A number of themes are dealt with here, but not in an annoying moralistic way. Jay campaigns to halt the next Dunblane or Columbine, but Gail makes sure he doesn't raise the gun debate so things don't get heated. Instead of should there be fewer guns in America (or anywhere for that matter), this is about the aftermath, and whether Hayden's parents were negligent. Could they have done more to recognise something was wrong? Can Evan's parents ever come to terms with what's happened?

Mass asks a lot of questions for which there are no easy answers. Can you show compassion while you're in such intense pain? Can you make sense of such a tragedy when many factors are at play? Can you ever forgive the unforgiveable? Ultimately, however, Mass is about human connection, reconciliation, forgiveness and hope.

I don't think I've ever been in an audience so quiet. No coughing, no rustling and no fidgeting, even though the play runs straight through for one hour and forty-five minutes without an interval. It's like we're all holding our breaths in unison while we overhear a conversation we shouldn't be hearing.

The intimacy of the 250-seater Donmar Theatre is perfect for Mass. We're up close with the actors, witnessing pain, horror and guilt etched on their faces. Their pain is our pain, as it is everyone's pain when a mass school shooting occurs. But there's hope towards the end of this remarkable play when the parents creep towards some kind of uneasy empathy in a spiritual space – and that reckoning is exquisite to behold.

Mass runs at the Donmar Theatre until 6 June