I know you’re thinking what I was thinking about giving up bucks and time to go see a play about gamers playing Dungeons and Dragons and Lord only knows what else.
Meh.
It was a fast flashback to the early 1980s when geeks who just couldn’t get enough Stephen R. Donaldson gathered in basements to roll the dice on whether they could succeed in a quest to fill the insatiable need to be anyone but who they really were, and maybe get “lucky” with some other “eccentric” in the game. The Moral Majority immediately warned that players would go to hell when they succumbed to their degeneracy, because the game was a huge attraction for humans who didn’t fit in to what sober society preferred.
So when you look at it that way, D&D — and for the generations born after Atari, “World of Warcraft” — is the perfect vehicle for driving the drama of the world’s misfits right up onto the stage.
And that’s just what the Aurora Fox theater does with Qui Nguyen’s quirky and wildly entertaining play, “She Kills Monsters,” the show’s regional premier.
The play is a high-energy, comic-tragic romp through the Gothic tale of a young woman lamenting the death of her younger sister. Think “Tron” for adults with a sense of humor.
The plot centers on Agnes, brought to all kinds of life by Lilli Hokama, and her attempt to better know her high-school-age sister, Tilly, killed in car crash. Agnes finds Tilly’s D&D play book, and she enlists one of her pals to roll the dice on the game. Agnes moves in and out of the virtual world, collecting nuggets about her sister, herself and all of us.
But the fun part is the show itself. Rather than slog through the limitations of trying to stage a perfect FX movie idea, the Aurora Fox company’s technical director Brandon Case and Director Geoffrey Kent embrace the world’s cosmic nerdiness and create a spectacle that’s part “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” part “Lara Croft” and all fun. The company treats the audience to lavish puppetry, extraordinary swash-buckling sword fights, and a show-stopping dragon battle you won’t forget. The set, lighting, staging, performances and theatrics are a testament to the level of theater the Aurora Fox now commands.
Both Hokama and Jenna Moll Reyes, as Tilly, bring unexpected depth and fun energy to the stage. The entire cast expertly straddles the fine line between comedy and inanity this show seriously risks. The play and the company skirt a host of land mines that could easily have the audience checking their watches.
Among all the eye candy and laughs, you get to the end of the show remembering that those among us seen as odd, misfits and eccentrics struggle in ways and places we choose to ignore. And you leave the theater remembering that we are all misfits here, looking for a way to kill monsters before they kill us.
“She Kills Monsters”
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Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at the Aurora Fox Arts Center, 9900 E. Colfax Ave. through May 16
Tickets $24-$31
303-739-1970
www.AuroraFox.org