By Tihut Tamrat, Contributing Writer
PHOTOS: Rich Soublet II
In The Monsters, playwright Ngozi Anyanwu transforms the mixed martial arts ring into a deeply emotional arena where pride, pain and buried family history collide. Directed by Tamilla Woodard and choreographed by Adesola Osakalumi, the play is a tender yet bruising examination of two estranged siblings attempting to reconnect when neither has learned how to lower their guard.
For years, Lil has secretly followed the career of her older brother, Big, an aging but respected fighter in the local mixed martial arts circuit. Although the siblings have not spoken, she has studied him from a distance—watching his matches, memorizing his movements and observing the life he has constructed without her. When Lil unexpectedly appears at Big’s door, her arrival forces them both to confront the resentment, abandonment and unspoken affection that have kept them apart.
Anyanwu, who also plays Lil, writes the character with an affecting combination of boldness and vulnerability. Lil enters Big’s world prepared for confrontation, but her fixation on fighting reveals a more complicated desire. She does not simply want to imitate her brother. She wants to understand him, reclaim a relationship with him and discover whether she possesses the strength to reshape her own life.
Sullivan Jones gives Big a commanding physical presence while allowing the audience to see the exhaustion beneath the fighter’s controlled exterior. Big has built his identity around endurance. In the ring, pain is expected, rules are understood and an opponent can be faced directly. Family, however, offers no such clarity. Jones skillfully communicates the discomfort of a man who knows how to absorb a punch but struggles to receive his sister’s questions, anger and love.
Under Woodard’s direction, the play’s tension grows from the contrast between their past versions of themselves, exhibiting physical aggression and emotional restraint. Lil and Big circle one another like opponents, testing boundaries and searching for weaknesses. Their conversations carry the rhythm of a fight: approach, retreat, strike and recover. Even moments of humor feel connected to this rhythm, briefly loosening the pressure before another painful truth lands.
Osakalumi’s choreography makes the physical language of mixed martial arts essential to the storytelling rather than decorative spectacle. Every stance, blow and defensive movement reflects the siblings’ shifting relationship. Fighting becomes a language they can share when words prove inadequate. At times, their physical exchanges appear less like attempts to cause harm than desperate requests to be acknowledged.
The title invites audiences to consider who, or what, the real monsters are. They may be the memories the siblings have avoided, the anger they inherited or the hardened versions of themselves they created to survive. Yet the play refuses to define either Lil or Big by their worst choices. Instead, it recognizes that people can wound one another while still longing to be loved.
At its heart, The Monsters is not about winning a fight. It is about deciding whether a damaged relationship is still worth fighting for. Warm, raw and emotionally precise, Anyanwu’s sibling story reminds us that building a life we can be proud of sometimes requires confronting the people, histories and hidden parts of ourselves we would rather leave outside the ring.
Monsters runs until June 28 in La Jolla Playhouse’s Mandel Weiss Forum. For tickets and information, please visit lajollaplayhouse.org.
