What do you do when you’re a young, queer nerd stuck in Athens, Ohio, in 1995? You become a big name in the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) subculture, of course.
Qui Nguyen’s She Kills Monsters ran from February 5–14 at Theatre Erindale. As UTM’s D&D Club President, I was excited to see how D&D was portrayed by this production of the play. I was glad to find out that there was research done beyond the surface-level that extended beyond the basic mechanics, or just name-dropping of key enemies.
The play explores the life of teenager Tilly Evans (Vanessa Whyte), who dies in a car crash with her parents, through the lens of her love for D&D. In the aftermath of the crash, Tilly’s older sister Agnes (Laura Dae) searches through her belongings in hopes of understanding the little sister she never really got to know.
When she finds an original D&D module that Tilly wrote, Agnes enlists Dungeon Master (DM) Chuck (Anya Reynolds-Swannie) to lead her through playing her first adventure, looking to find anything that might tell her more about her sister. However, she gets more than she bargained for when she finds Tilly has written herself and her friends into the module as characters. Her sister was using the fantasy world she had created to divulge in her real-world desires and tribulations in a private space. With everything laid bare, Agnes sees her sister in a new light.
The colourful monsters, over-the-top fights, and skimpy armour make for a fun, campy performance. The comedic nature of the D&D adventures also creates a foundation for Agnes to navigate her deeper struggles with grief and loss less directly.
Under David Matheson’s direction, the lead duo of Whyte and Dae shift between levity and heaviness with impeccable finesse. Dae brings a growing confidence to Agnes as she finds not only the answers she seeks, but the adventure she has always wanted in her average life. Whyte’s performance demands the viewer’s attention in every scene she has on stage — an attention that is earned through a dedicated grit that she builds her character on. No matter the monster — figurative, or literal — Tilly bounces back.
Whyte’s Tilly exudes confidence and control, but as a powerful Paladin, a holy knight tasked with upholding order, Tilly isn’t without holes in her armour. When met with homophobic attacks from Evil Gabi and Evil Tina (Nohely Cermeño and Hasti Asarizadeh), Whyte deftly manages to make the typically larger-than-life Tilly feel small and scared.
She may be all-powerful in the stories she creates, but Tilly alone can’t vanquish the real-world threats that seep into her writing. Whyte’s ability to connect with the audience makes us all feel defeated with Tilly when the warrior is reduced to a vulnerable and frightened kid trying to survive.
Shunsho Ando Heng, who plays Agnes’ boyfriend, Miles, is supportive, but has trouble connecting with her. And while he seems helpful and earnest when he and Agnes move in together, Agnes’ best friend, Vera (Asarizadeh), paints him as uncommitted.
When Tilly corroborates this viewpoint by writing him into the adventure as a gelatinous cube, it’s easy to see him as the bad guy. But when Miles, as the large jiggling cube, attacks the party, it becomes clear that Tilly blames him for the distance that had existed between her and Agnes. This revelation’s heartfelt nature is elevated by the juxtaposition of emotional depth against Ando Heng’s comedic skill as an actor.
Reynolds-Swannie, as a worried Chuck, brings a similar juxtaposition that highlights the danger of Agnes’ engrossment with the game. Watching her drift into self-destructiveness, we see through Reynolds-Swannie’s expression that Chuck is also a worried kid — one who is grieving the loss of a close friend. He’s doing what he can to help, but his DM powers have their limit.
However, inaccuracies can take a veteran D&D player out of the show at various points. Among these many moments, Tiamat, the mother of all evil dragons, is consistently referred to as “the Tiamat,” when this is her name, not a species or title. The demon prince Orcus is one of the most intimidating enemies of the early D&D editions, but here he’s reduced to comic relief.
Michelle Vanderheyden’s vibrant costume design brings a liveliness to all the characters, especially the monsters. Though largely excellent work, her Beholder design gives us a fuzzy green blob with many hands and no mouth, missing the mark on the fearsome, Lovecraftian monster whose gaze alone can kill an adventurer — or worse.
Despite its flaws, Theatre Erindale’s production of She Kills Monsters creatively uses D&D as a storytelling device to portray a touching story of grief that masterfully demonstrates the range of its talented cast. D&D enthusiast or not, this play makes you fall in love with their scrappy crew and earnestly human characters.
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