Theater review by Adam Feldman
When people talk about physical theater, they usually mean the kind of shows that prioritize movement over text, with elements of mime and dance. The Monsters is physical in a different way. Its two characters are mixed up in the world of mixed martial arts: Big (Okieriete Onaodowan) is a champion MMA combatant who, pushing 40, is nearing his professional expiration date; Lil (Aigner Mizzelle) is his estranged half-sister, a decade or so younger, whom he finds himself training for a career of her own. When they work out together or act out matches, the actors throw their whole bodies into action, and in the intimate confines of Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage II, everyone gets a cageside seat.
The Monsters| Photograph: Courtesy T. Charles Erickson
Writer-director Ngozi Anyanwu stages these sequences with thrilling immediacy, aided by choreographer Rickey Tripp and fight director Gerry Rodriguez. (Veteran bantamweight competitor Sijara Eubanks is the production’s MMA consultant.) But Big and Lil’s sparring outside the ring is, in a quieter way, just as compelling. He is stoic and intensely guarded, but she keeps jabbing at him until she can get through his defenses. In flashbacks, they play younger versions of themselves: The adolescent Lil is spoiling for battle, but gives up high-school wrestling because boys keep trying to pin her in the wrong ways; obversely, Big is gentler than he will become, but people pick fights with him so often—he has bulked up early, so he looks like a challenge—that he comes to pick fighting over the career in civil service he’d prefer. (“People tell you enough stories about yourself, you believe em,” he says.)
The Monsters| Photograph: Courtesy T. Charles Erickson
The duo’s journeys include abandonment and substance abuse, but The Monsters is not a sob story—it’s a sib story, in which two people, misshapen in their youths, give each other a chance to remake themselves. For him, that means trying to open up and settle down; for her, it means finding confidence and putting herself out to be noticed. (“I aint a meat and potatoes fighter like you,” she brags of her style in the cage. “I’m a steak fritz bitch.”) Anyanwu charts this progress smartly, without pushing too hard, and the actors complement each other beautifully as Mizzelle’s scrappy charisma bounces against Onaodowan’s musclebound grace. They keep you gripped as you watch them fight for what freedom they can find in the cage and beyond.
The Monsters. Manhattan Theatre Club (Off Broadway). By Ngozi Anyanwu. Directed by Anyanwu. With Okieriete Onaodowan, Aigner Mizzelle. Running time: 1hr 40mins. No intermission.
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The Monsters| Photograph: Courtesy T. Charles Erickson
