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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Arifa Akbar

Mass review – forgiveness doesn’t come easily in masterly school-shooter drama

A man in a plaid shirt is shown speaking from behind while sitting at a table in front of a woman who is listening to him.
Pained … Adeel Akhtar and Lyndsey Marshal in Mass at Donmar Warehouse, London. Photograph: Richard Hubert Smith

Fran Kranz’s 2021 film Mass, featuring two sets of parents whose sons have died in a high-school massacre, was originally written as a play. Restored as such, in Carrie Cracknell’s production, it takes place in the backroom of a church where their across-the-table encounter encapsulates a pained instance of restorative justice.

Gail (Lyndsey Marshal) and Jay (Adeel Akhtar) are the parents of Evan, one of 10 children murdered by the teenage shooter, Hayden, the son of Richard (Paul Hilton) and Linda (Monica Dolan), who then killed himself.

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