Love, hope & brutality infuse Berkeley Rep’s ‘Monsters’
Ngozi Anyanwu is LIL and Sullivan Jones is BIG in the West Coast premiere of Anyanwu’s The Monsters at Berkeley Rep’s Peet’s Theatre through May 3. Photo by Kevin Berne
Overcoming our pasts and connecting our truest selves with the people we love is the kind of dramatic engine that has been fueling stories forever. It’s the story of maturity, evolution and deeply meaningful relationships, and we just can’t get enough.
We’ve experienced a lot of these kinds of stories, but playwright Ngozi Anyanwu takes a novel approach. Her drama The Monsters is back at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where it was nurtured into life in the company’s new play incubator The Ground Floor. After a world premiere last fall in New Jersey then New York, the two-character play has finally reached the West Coast in a co-production from Berkeley Rep and La Jolla Playhouse.
With the subtitle a sibling love story, the play is just that: a reconnection of adult half-siblings whose traumatic childhood at the hands of their abusive, alcoholic father has sent them on separate and difficult paths. In flashbacks to their childhood, they’re known as BIG (Sullivan Jones) and LIL (playwright Anyanwu), and in the present, LIL has sought out her big brother after 16 years of no contact. She knows where to find him because she follows his career: he’s a successful mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter, a sport described in the program as a mix of “boxing, wrestling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, judo” and more. It’s disciplined but brutal, and BIG is collecting the shiny gold belts of a champ.
Sullivan Jones is BIG in The Monsters. Photo by Kevin Berne
He’s surprised to see LIL, about whom he feels guilty for abandoning. He had his own issues to deal with, and now that he’s sober and is making headway as a fighter, he’s nervous of anything that could derail his intense focus. But he also loves and misses his little sister, who has a bright, frenetic energy and has clearly learned to take care of herself. But they do need each other – each is all the other has in the way of family – and it turns out that LIL, who has always idolized her brother, could be a talented fighter herself.
The crucible for this sibling reunion is literally a cage for intense fighting. Nina Ball’s set in Berkeley Rep’s Peet’s Theatre is part chainlink-enclosed ring on a stage that also becomes locker rooms, spartan apartments, even the occasional car.
BIG and LIL have to reestablish their relationship and deal with the effects of their shared past. BIG is sober, but LIL is not. In increments, as they develop trust and rekindle their deep affection, BIG can help his sister develop discipline and strength as a fighter, but it’s a bumpy road.
Ngozi Anyanwu is playwright and actor in The Monsters. Photo by Kevin Berne
As BIG, whose fighting nickname is “The Monster,” Jones is a giant stage presence, even for a character who is withdrawn and almost solely focused on his career. When he’s in the ring, his fights are depicted as a powerful dance (the choreography is by Adesola Osakalumi, the MMA consultant is Sijara Eubanks and the percussive sound that underscores the fights is by Bailey Trierweiler & Uptownworks). The violence is depicted as grace and power and skill, and it’s beautiful.
Director Tamilla Woodard lets the relationship between BIG and LIL develop in fits and starts. Even though the show is only 85 minutes, this central aspect doesn’t feel rushed. Playwright Anyanwu accomplishes a great deal in a brief time – short scenes but full of history and complication and genuine affection. For such a serious subject, there’s a surprising amount of humor in The Monsters, much of it from the irrepressible LIL.
From the flashbacks through to the end of the play, we cover more than a quarter century in the lives of these siblings, and though there’s a great deal we don’t see, we have an appreciation for their journey – what it has cost them, what they have gained and, perhaps most importantly, how their bond has survived and strengthened in spite of a family and a world that is mostly against them. They share blood and they share a chosen profession marked by brutality. They have found their way to each other through struggle and absence and conflict, but they are evolving and growing up and growing toward one another. And that is as moving as it is hopeful.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Ngozi Anyanwu’s The Monsters continues through May 3 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Peet’s Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. Running time: 85 minutes (no intermission). Tickets are $25-$135 (subject to change). Call 510-647-2949 or visit berkeleyrep.org.
