She Killed the Monster
It’s amazing what a week can do. When I saw the dress rehearsal for “She Kills Monsters” last Saturday, light cues were late, the stage fights were awkward, and while the actors for the most part knew their lines, there wasn’t a conviction or sense of authenticity behind them.
But now, with opening night behind them and three performances under their belts, their parts are well worn, they have adjusted to the pressure of the paying audience and their blocking and stage direction are effortless. They genuinely seem to be having fun.
Daniela Wilder, who plays Agnes, carried the show in the dress rehearsal, but during Sunday's matinee, her presence was commanding. Her part is large - I can’t remember a scene where she is not slaying a doppelganger of her boyfriend Miles, played by J'Shawn Brockett; collaborating with Jakob Welch’s Bigs - the hysterically fey Dungeon Master; or commiserating with her colleague, Angelica Albarrán’s Vera, the acid tongued guidance counselor who has no patience for a student with an STD and an “itchy hoo ha.” It would be interesting to see if the guidance counselors at American Canyon High School were as brazen.
Lorraine Sandoval’s Tilly, though, around whom the play revolves, grew into her righteousness, tinged with sarcasm, such that she is a confident, mature, beautiful lesbian woman who leads her gaggle of warriors with integrity, courage, honesty and grace.
The story itself is a classic one. Maybe that’s why Dungeons and Dragons was so successful: humanity has always been a sucker for the hero’s journey. This is where an unknown is observed and the journey is presented; challenges are overcome using wits and cunning; and in the end, the dragon is slain.
Agnes is all the wiser, more conscientious and more compassionate. The quandary we had at the beginning - Agnes’ not really knowing her sister - is satisfied in the end. After exploring the D&D game Tilly wrote, she knows her sister well, such that she is able to deliver a message to Lily, Tilly’s high school crush. Lily is dating a football player, but still relishes her time with Tilly. It seems the first kiss can be with a girl, and more tender than that with a boy.
Indeed, Selena Tellez, as Lily, did double time. Tellez’s Lily is a sweet, somewhat insecure cheerleader in real life, but as Lilith in the D&D fantasy, she is a diabolical vixen. She alternates between these two effortlessly, though you’ll prefer the horned, and horny, Lillith, over Lily every time.
The scene stealer, though, is Steve, played by Micah Scott. As a student in the play he is a nasal voiced nerd to whom Vera impatiently condescends when he asks her about quitting marching band. His voice is not raspy and dopey in real life, though. I heard him, in a planning session, use his stately, strong normal voice to announce his plans for the costumes. But on stage he puts aside any sense of masculine dignity to become the archetype of nerd, a dork, a putz. He is a character actor, sin qua non.
Hysterically, he bursts onto the stage with arms stretched over his head, exclaiming “huzzah!” at many points during the show, which gets laughs, over and over again. Especially during the cheerleader succubai’s second appearance, when the succubai yank out his arms and use them to fight with Tilly, Agnes, and their gang of lesbian warriors. His raspy outburst is a joyful bit of randomness. You love him for his, though misplaced, joie de vivre.
The climax of the show, of course, is the five headed dragon that Agnes has to kill. The show’s shoestring budget is apparent with the paper maché dragon heads that attack Agnes, but their color, their horns and the ingenuity involved in their choreography - they are manned like one of the dragons in the Chinese New Year parade - make for a raucous good time.
In the end, Tilly says, “All life is, is just stories.” And that is what the D&D game is all about. It’s just a story that a group of friends make up according to some rules set forth by the uber geek, Gary Gygax, in 1974.
Though it’s bigger and more relatable than that. We, each as humans, eventually become the story we tell others, and ourselves, about ourselves. And it’s Tilly’s story, set forth in her in D&D playbook, that relieves Agnes’ guilt from not paying more attention to her. That very story, is the cathartic factor, the reason for the play, the way that Agnes, Tilly, and we as an audience, grow. Which is the whole point, not only of live theater, but any entertainment.
Finally, the fact that this production was produced almost entirely by the students, with the exception of some direction, is to be commended. Summer Heartt, the drama teacher at ACHS has her hands full. She has succeeded, admirably, in getting a cast of 23 actors and a stage crew of 30, feline though they can be, to put on a show. Its remarkable. I’m very much looking forward to Cinderella in March.
