She Kills Monsters
Reviewed by Julia Lloyd George
Long Beach Playhouse
Through March 25
She Kills Monsters pulls no punches. Though Qui Nguyen’s writing could use a little more sophistication and nuance, especially in the rather brash first half, the play is so earnest and fun-loving that you can’t help but enjoy yourself and embrace the silliness. When the pace of the narrative finally slows down and the central characters show their true selves towards the end, it becomes especially rewarding. Filling a theater with an audience of enthusiastic young people is also challenging enough that everyone involved with the production, admirably directed by Shinshin Yuder Tsai, deserves a hefty amount of recognition for that feat alone.
The most obvious part of the attraction, of course, is the ambitious fantasy concept; this is a story about a high school teacher, Agnes (a charming Deva Marie Gregory), grieving her younger sister, Tilly (a terrific Fiona Burrows), and trying to find out more about her by playing the Dungeons & Dragons game that she wrote. The playwright’s eagerness to jump into that exciting world is evident, as it’s inherently full of action, conflict, and color. The larger-than-life visual elements of the set design (Spencer Richardson), projection design (Vanessa Fernandez), costume design (Christina Bayer), prop design (Allison Mamann), and nostalgic 90s soundtrack are some of the true highlights of this show with no shortage of stimulation.
Unfortunately, some character development gets a little lost in the shuffle at the beginning. The backstory of Agnes’s grief is rushed and it simplifies the differences between her and Tilly; she was merely an “average” girl with basic interests (“boys, music, and popular television programs”) until both her parents and Tilly, a geek who liked “the dark arts”, were killed in a car accident and her life became tragic. There is little information given about the two sisters’ relationship before the audience is asked to invest in their imaginary journey together, an omission that made it difficult for me to engage with the story at first. The comedy is also quite juvenile at times: the worst example is a running joke about Agnes having an affair with her underage Dungeon Master, Chuck Biggs (Derek Delmar).
In the alternate universe that Chuck oversees, Tilly is a badass warrior and Agnes is the bumbling outsider teased by Tilly and her scantily clad sidekicks, Lilith Morningstar (Roxanne Westerlin) and Kaliope Darkwalker (Caitlin Zinn). Tilly seems generally indifferent to her sister Agnes is mostly anxious to please her, a somewhat flat dynamic that eventually gains dimension with a key revelation about Tilly’s character and Agnes’s growing attachment to her. Gregory and Burrows deftly handle the more delicate scenes that culminate in a tearful ending that pulls Agnes back into her ordinary life. Before that happens, however, Tilly asks her, “So, did you have fun?” It’s a question that all of us should ask more often.
Long Beach Playhouse, 5021 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach. Fri.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 2 pm; thru March 25. https://lbplayhouse.org/. Running time two hours with a 15-minute intermission.
