She Kills Monsters
by Qui Nguyen
Valencia College Theater • Orlando, Florida
Directed by Bill Warriner
Starring Nyaira Beene, Learsi Rivera, Michael Sullivan
Consider Tilly (Nyaira Beene). She has a serious problem: her entire family died in a car accident. Tilly was spared only by luck of the draw and a prior commitment, and now all she has left is a confusing folder that describes an involved “Dungeons and Dragon” game, complete with 20-sided dice. She seeks out local dungeon master Agnes Evans (Learsi Rivera) and asks “what does all this stuff mean?” Agnes’s answer confuses her, so they agree to play the game through. She scares up a dungeon master (Michael Sullivan), and we are off to a world of ogres and demons and a gelatinous cube that looks like a giant middle-school luncheon dessert.
This is scary stuff for Tilly. Her brother may never come back, but he lives on vicariously in the roll of a die and the casting of ridiculous battle skills. Tilly begins as a frightened and confused novice, but her in-game sister Agnes is a confident warrior. Agnes also provides a group of well-trained assistants, and the game becomes more and more real with each roll of the 20-sided die — and more and more dangerous. The big question raised is not good vs. evil, but sexuality, and who is what and does what with whom.
A string of clever costumes and ridiculous creatures fills the set, and the ghost of suppressed sexuality crawls out in the worst possible way. A spirit guide helps, but ultimately success and survival depend on Agnes. The set is populated with multiple stairs, giving the cast plenty of places to jump, fight, and discourse upon. The fight coordination comes from Orlando’s Bill Warriner. He keeps everyone in motion and fully alive for the whole hour. Clever headgear creates an effective five-headed monster, and a crew of ghillie suit-wearing stage hands removes the bodies, takes them offstage, and reconstitutes them, keeping the cast alive and off book.
There’s a story of acceptance buried in here, but its not the overall theme. It’s fun, it’s fast, and the stage is amazingly blood-free when it ends. Highly recommended!
