Character Analysis — Supporting Characters

While Phil and Leah dominate DNA, the supporting characters are essential to the play's exploration of group dynamics, conformity, and moral failure. Each character represents a different response to the crisis. This lesson examines them in detail.

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John Tate

Overview

John Tate is the group's original leader — the one nominally in charge when the play begins. However, his leadership quickly collapses under the pressure of the crisis.

Aspect	Detail
Role	Initial leader of the group
Key trait	Insecurity, bluster, inability to cope with crisis
Dramatic function	Represents the failure of conventional authority
Arc	Leader → displaced by Phil → "finds God"

Key Moments

Moment	Significance
Bans the word "dead"	Denial — he tries to control reality through language
Threatens the group to maintain order	His authority relies on aggression, not intelligence
Is displaced by Phil	Phil's competence exposes John Tate's inadequacy
"Finds God" in Section 4	Seeks external moral authority after internal collapse

Analysis

John Tate represents conventional leadership that fails under pressure. His strategy is to deny the problem (ban the word "dead") and to use threats to maintain order. When Phil offers a concrete plan, John Tate's authority evaporates instantly.

His decision to "find God" in Section 4 is significant:

• It suggests he needs a higher authority to tell him what is right and wrong, having failed to determine this himself.
• It may represent genuine moral searching — or it may be another form of avoidance, replacing one kind of obedience (to Phil) with another (to religion).

Examiner's tip: John Tate is an excellent example of how Kelly explores leadership. You could write: "Kelly contrasts John Tate's emotional, reactive leadership with Phil's cold, strategic control, suggesting that in a crisis, competence trumps charisma — even when that competence is morally bankrupt."

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Cathy

Overview

Cathy is the play's most overtly disturbing character. While other characters feel guilt, fear, or discomfort, Cathy enjoys the crisis.

Aspect	Detail
Role	Group member; becomes leader in Section 4
Key trait	Enjoyment of violence, attention-seeking, lack of empathy
Dramatic function	Represents the most extreme moral failure in the group
Arc	Bystander → willing accomplice → new leader

Key Moments

Moment	Significance
Excited about appearing on television	The crisis is entertainment for her, not a moral problem
Volunteers enthusiastically for tasks	She is not reluctant — she actively embraces the cover-up
Threatens to gouge out someone's eyes	Her violence goes beyond the group's needs — she enjoys it
Becomes the new leader in Section 4	The most amoral character inherits power

Analysis

Cathy is frightening because she represents evil without purpose. Phil's amorality at least serves a function (protecting the group). Cathy's cruelty appears to be gratuitous — she takes pleasure in it.

Her rise to leadership in Section 4 is Kelly's darkest commentary on group dynamics:

John Tate (conventional authority) → fails
Phil (amoral intelligence) → withdraws
Cathy (pure aggression) → takes over

This progression suggests that in the absence of moral leadership, the most violent person fills the vacuum.

Examiner's tip: Cathy is a crucial character for discussing the theme of escalation. Write: "Kelly uses Cathy's trajectory from bystander to leader to suggest that moral vacuums are filled not by the most ethical but by the most ruthless — a chilling commentary on how power operates in groups."

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Brian

Overview

Brian is the group's weakest and most sympathetic member. He is the one who suffers most visibly from the guilt of what has happened.

Aspect	Detail
Role	Group member; forced witness
Key trait	Emotional fragility, guilt, vulnerability
Dramatic function	Represents the human cost of the cover-up
Arc	Fragile → coerced witness → complete mental breakdown

Key Moments

Moment	Significance
Crying and hysterical in Section 1	He is the most emotionally honest character
Chosen by Phil to be the "witness"	Phil exploits Brian's fragility — his tears will seem genuine
Gives false testimony to the police	Moral line crossed — he becomes an active participant in injustice
Complete breakdown in Section 4	The psychological cost of what he has done destroys him

Analysis

Brian functions as a barometer of guilt. While other characters suppress or deny their feelings, Brian's emotions are constantly visible. Phil exploits this — he chooses Brian as the witness precisely because Brian's distress will make his testimony seem authentic.

This is one of the play's cruellest ironies: Brian's genuine suffering is weaponised.

Examiner's tip: Brian connects to the Milgram experiment perfectly. Write: "Like Milgram's participants, Brian knows what he is doing is wrong — he is visibly distressed — yet he obeys Phil's instructions. Kelly uses Brian to demonstrate that moral knowledge does not protect against social pressure."

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Richard

Overview

Richard is a relatively passive character for most of the play, but he becomes structurally important in Section 4 when he replaces Leah in the street scenes with Phil.

Aspect	Detail
Role	Group member; narrator in Section 4
Key trait	Passivity, conformity, ordinariness
Dramatic function	Everyman figure; delivers the play's final exposition
Arc	Passive bystander → replacement for Leah

Analysis

Richard's ordinariness is the point. He represents the average person — neither especially moral nor especially cruel. He goes along with the group because that is what most people do.

His replacement of Leah in Section 4 is structurally devastating:

• It suggests that Phil does not value individuals — Leah and Richard serve the same function (someone to sit next to).
• It shows that the group has normalised its situation — Richard reports the aftermath as casually as news.
• It mirrors the play's theme that individuals are interchangeable within group dynamics.

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Mark and Jan

Overview

Mark and Jan function as a pair — they often speak together, finishing each other's sentences or speaking in rapid alternation.

Aspect	Detail
Role	Messengers; report events to the group
Key trait	Interdependence, fragmented speech, conformity
Dramatic function	Chorus-like figures who deliver exposition

Analysis

Mark and Jan's shared speech pattern is significant:

• It suggests loss of individual identity within the group.
• Their fragmented, overlapping dialogue mirrors the fragmented truth — no single person has the full picture.
• They function like a Greek chorus, reporting events rather than driving them.

Examiner's tip: When discussing form and structure, mention Mark and Jan's shared dialogue. It is an example of how Kelly uses language to dramatise the erosion of individual identity under group pressure.

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Danny and Lou

Overview

Danny and Lou are minor characters who represent passive conformity. They do what the group does without significant resistance or enthusiasm.

Aspect	Detail
Role	Group members
Key trait	Conformity, passivity, eventual coupling
Dramatic function	Represent the "silent majority" who enable group action

Analysis

Danny and Lou's emergence as a couple in Section 4 is notable:

• It suggests they have found comfort in each other after the trauma.
• It may also suggest that personal relationships can emerge even from collective moral failure.
• Their passivity throughout the play makes them representative of bystanders — those who neither lead nor resist.

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Adam

Overview

Adam is the play's absent centre. He is the victim whose suffering drives the entire plot, yet he barely appears as a character.

Aspect	Detail
Role	The victim; the object of the group's actions
Key trait	Absence, vulnerability, dehumanisation
Dramatic function	His fate is the moral test the group fails
Arc	Bullied → presumed dead → alive but hidden → broken

Key Points

1. Adam is defined by what others do to him, not by who he is. We learn almost nothing about his personality, interests, or thoughts.
2. He is dehumanised throughout — first through bullying, then through being treated as a "problem" to be solved rather than a person to be helped.
3. In Section 3, when Adam is found alive, the group does not celebrate — they panic. His survival is a threat, not a relief. This is the play's most damning indictment of the group.
4. By Section 4, Adam is alive but barely human — unable to speak, living like an animal. The group has effectively destroyed him without killing him.