Review by Ron Fassler . . .
For Ngozi Anyanwu’s new two-character play, The Monsters, scenic designer Andrew Boyce has fashioned a rubber flooring at the center of its three-quarter stage area. In a gym, such flooring’s main purpose is to provide shock absorption for joints, durability for footwork, and traction. Here, in this complicated family drama, it supplies leverage for bursts of bouts between a brother and sister long estranged. Not only are their fierce, verbal arguments filled with recriminations, but because both are boxers, actual fighting is part of the action. Bruising truths get uncovered, aided by a few flashbacks from their days as adolescents, giving the arguments context. A field day for two physically fit and emotionally available actors, Okieriete Onaodowan and Aigner Mizzelle are mesmerizing in this deceptively simple play about lost connections and an arduous path towards reconciliation.
Playwright Anyanwu (who also directs here) is no stranger to the New York stage, with Last of the Love Letters (2021), Good Grief (2018), and The Homecoming Queen (2018) among her credits. And Leroy and Lucy, about legendary blues guitarist Robert Johnson, had its world premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago in 2024. Her writing is sparse and clean, and she understands the art of inflicting tiny cuts with a scalpel, as opposed to hacking away with a kitchen knife. These two disparate half-siblings who once shared a drunk, abusive and now deceased father, have lost touch for reasons that are only hinted at. That can sometimes feel selfish, leaving an audience to want more of the story, but what Anyanwu is going after is something different. It’s not the specifics that matter, only the pain and hurt of abandonment.
Big, who is approaching forty, has been boxing since he was a teenager. When we first meet him, he is a fighter on the way down. Lil’s sudden return into his life, after he abandoned her sixteen years earlier, means that her being ten years younger is no longer the wide gap it once was. More mature now, she is hungry to try her hand at boxing, her half-brother’s chosen profession, only he doesn’t want any part of that. Naturally, they begin the dance of will they or won’t they, and it seems (for a time) they might reconnect and find something akin to the closeness they once shared. After all, he was her protector from their father’s rages, and she helped give him purpose to not abandon his hopes and dreams. But Lil is no passive creature looking for her big brother to rescue or save her. She is strong headed and determined to make it as a boxer. That she has picked the same profession as Big is hardly coincidence, but she is more interested in learning what he knows than what he can offer as a substitute parent. Both are stubborn, hard-hearted, and defensive. Their communication positively crackles and makes for the theatrical equivalent of watching two mules butt heads.
In her notes about the “movement” of the play, Anyanwu writes: “It should be aggressive and surreal and beautiful. Fighting is an art form after all. At times it looks dangerous, but in slow motion or from another angle, it can also look affectionate, sometime comforting, sometimes a dance.” Taking the role of director herself, Anyanwu has assured that’s what we get scene after scene, not only in the actual fighting in the ring, but the fighting that occurs over a shared burger and a stray comment spoken under one’s breath.
Onaodowan, so memorable from the original cast of Hamilton as James Madison and Hercules Mulligan, has physically transformed himself over the past eleven years since that musical’s premiere downtown. His once huskier frame is now more chiseled and at this stage in his life and years, appears perfectly cast as Big. He imbues the character’s silences with the sort of thoughtfulness that can’t be faked and his connection to Mizzelle goes deep. The casting of Aigner Mizzelle is an inspired one. I recall being impressed with her in Douglas Lyon’s comedy Chicken & Biscuits (2021), in which she made her Broadway debut. And about a year ago, her performance in workshop of a comedy titled Nina, by Forrest Malloy, was nothing short of a wonder. What she brought to the role of a young actress with an outsized personality, whose talent and drive seemed destined to take her far, now seems like life imitating art. Because with The Monster, Mizzelle is clearly fulfilling that destiny. By turns playful, seductive, obstinate, insecure, and boldly egotistical, Lil is never at rest. What Mizzelle brings is all that and more and her simpatico with Onaodowan makes for one of the best two-character pairings I’ve seen in some time (among a plethora of two-character pairings in today’s theatre of economic necessity).
In the Playbill, credit is given to three people singled out just under the cast list—and rightly so: Alexus Jade Coney as Stage Manager, Alyssa K. Howard as Fight Captain, and Aigner Mizzelle herself as Dance Captain. This is a physical marathon and with the aid of character-driven costumes by Mika Eubanks and a wonderful lighting design by Cha See, the City Center Stage II space has rarely been put to such good use.
By the play’s finish, Anyanwu brings these two very human beings into what amounts to a filmic close-up. Their gentle dialogue cast a spell over the audience that caused me to emit an audible gasp after its last line was spoken. This is a powerful play of love and forgiveness set within the parameters of a boxing ring. Whether we realize that metaphorical context or not, we’ve all been there. Subtitled “A Sibling Love Story,” The Monsters proudly wears its heart on its sleeve.
The Monsters is playing at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage II at City Center, 131 W 55th Street, NYC, now through March 15. For ticket information, please visit: https://www.manhattantheatreclub.com/shows/2025-26-season/the-monsters/.
Photos by Christian Heino.
