At one point in Ngozi Anyanwu’s play “The Monsters: A Sibling Love Story” — which is currently running at Two River Theater in Red Bank, in its world premiere — one character, Lil, asks of the other, Big, “You know what you are?” Then she answers her own question: “You an enigma, wrapped in a teddy bear, wrapped in cinder block.”
And yes, she pretty much nails this brooding, mysterious but still relatable character.
The premise of this Philadelphia-set play — two estranged siblings re-connect, deal with their difficult shared past, and struggle to re-bond with each other — is not exactly something we haven’t seen before, onstage. But Anyanwu, a Trenton native, explores the subject in a way that, I think, it has never been explored before. As a result, “The Monsters” — directed, here, by Anyanwu herself — feels fresh and original.
Okieriete Onaodowan plays Big, and Aigner Mizzelle is Lil. The two characters are half-brother and half-sister — same father, different mothers — and, at the start of the play, have not seen each other in 16 years. Big is also about 10 years older than Lil; he is 39 and she is 29.
They are also at very different places in their lives.
Big has become a professional mixed martial arts fighter and, while he may not be an international household name, he has done well on a more local level, and has a big gold champion’s belt to show for it. He is deadly serious about his training, and doesn’t seem to have much of a personal life.
Lil, on the other hand, is struggling: working as a waitress, drinking, living in a crappy little apartment. While Big is quiet and guarded, she is talkative and quirky.
She has personality to spare; he barely has any personality at all. Even their physical presences are vastly different. Outside the ring, he is still and slow — no purposeless movement, no wasted energy. She, on the other hand, is loose and gangly.
“One wears their heart on their sleeve,” Lil says about herself.
“… while keeping shit close to the chest,” Big says about himself..
They have been apart for so long that, at the start of the play, he doesn’t even recognize her when she surprises him on the street outside his gym, one day. “You might remember me from such places as your childhood and shit,” she says.
It does not happen quickly, or easily, but over a span of many months, they do grow closer. Anyanwu switches frequently from scenes in the present to episodes from different points in the past, when Lil was a child and Big was a teenager, or when Lil was a teenager and Big was a young adult. (“The Monsters” is a name they came up with to describe themselves, as a pair.) Traumas are revisited and relived, cathartically.
Years pass. Big is slowing down, in the ring, but begins to train Lil to become a professional mixed martial arts fighter herself. This is not a quick or easy process either, but eventually, she does show some promise of her own.
Big and, later, Lil, are frequently shown training, or facing off against unseen opponents, or sparring with each other. Both are convincingly imposing on a physical level, but also graceful. I imagine that any actor taking on one of these roles would have to undergo a substantial amount of training — not just to be able to execute the moves correctly, but to get through the physical demands of the one-hour, 45-minute, intermission-less play itself.
A three-person team (choreographer Rickey Tripp, fight director Gerry Rodriguez and mixed martial arts consultant Sijara Eubanks) makes vital contributions in this movement-heavy production. And scenic designer Andrew Boyce also deserves credit for creating a believably grimy gym, with a wall of dirty windows covering the set’s back wall.
Anyanwu powerfully and profoundly makes the point that a personal relationship is, in some ways, like a fight. You dance around each other. You size your partner up, and have to figure out when to be aggressive, and when to lay back. You have to keep trying even when all may seem lost.
Your reward in mixed martial arts is connecting in a way that causes damage. But if two lonely people do this dance, in real life, a different kind of connection is possible.
Two River Theater in Red Bank will present “The Monsters: A Sibling Love Story” through Nov. 23. Visit tworivertheater.org.