UTM hosts Qui Nguyen’s She Kills Monsters
Recapping one of the UTM Theatre and Drama studies highlights, She Kills Monsters, a 2011 play centered around the popular game Dungeons and Dragons.
She Kills Monsters is a 2.5 hr long play that was written by Qui Nguyen and debuted in 2011. It follows the main character Agnes, after she loses her younger sister, Tilly, in a car accident. The two sisters have starkly different personalities, with Agnes being a more typical teenage girl, who likes watching TV and hanging out with her boyfriend, while Tilly was more of a “nerd” who loves to play Dungeons and Dragons. Tilly left behind a DND campaign—a binder full of characters, monsters, and a story to follow—which Agnes decides to play through, even though she had no prior interest nor experience in the game. Throughout playing the campaign, Agnes learns more about her sister. She learns about friends, who show up as characters like Kelly/Kaliope, and about bullies, which show up as monsters, like Evil Tina and Evil Gabi. Agnes leaves the game understanding her sister better, and feeling closer to her sister in a way they weren’t when she was alive.
She Kills Monsters was performed at UTM’s Erindale Studio Theatre from early to mid February. It was directed by David Matheson, and starred Laura Dae as Agnes, and Vanessa Whyte as Tilly. The set used was simple, though effective as minimal set props were used, mainly large wooden dice that were moved around and used as seating, moving boxes, and a way to create high/low spatial differences.
Even if you’re unfamiliar with Dungeons and Dragons it won’t dampen your enjoyment of this play. While the game is the core focus of this piece, the mechanics are explained simply and organically to the character Agnes, and thus the audience, at the beginning. A lot of features of DND are used as gags throughout the play, like a character’s desire being thwarted by a bad dice roll, or the subversion of expectations with the devil character, Orcus, being tired of fighting the player characters. This ties into one of the play’s strongest suits, its humor. She Kills Monsters is a light-hearted play, with many jokes throughout, giving you a break from its more emotionally charged moments. Some jokes are innocent fun, others involve mild swear words/sexual innuendos. One character in particular, Chuck, the teenage dungeon master that helps Agnes navigate Tilly’s campaign book, is especially funny as he is an overzealous teenager that wants to sleep with the adult Agnes, while she continually rejects him.
She Kills Monsters also deals with heavy subject matter that left some of the audience crying when I watched the play. It handles themes of grief, as Agnes struggles with the loss of her younger sister. She also deals with the guilt that comes from knowing that everything she’s learned about Tilly through the DND campaign could’ve already been known if she’d made more of an effort while Tilly was still alive. She Kills Monsters is also very LGBTQ+ positive, as we learn through the campaign that Tilly was a closeted lesbian, and Lilith, one of the campaign characters, was made to represent Lilly, a classmate that Tilly may have had a relationship with.
