On friendship…

 

“​​How are you sustaining friendships in the pandemic? Have you developed any meaningful new friendships in 2021?” (Brandon Wint 2020/21)

 

If you have watched our interviews with the director and the designer, then by now you know that the Timms Studio version of She Kills Monsters is going “analogue” (T. Erin Gruber, 2021). That seems counter-intuitive for a play that invites the use of multimedia, by a playwright who loves cinematic tropes, during a time when we have all had to call on digital media to help us keep the show(s) going. 

 

But, strip away the puppets, the pop-culture references and the fancy fight choreography and you will find a play about forming and maintaining relationships. After all, the lead character, Agnes, plays her deceased sister Tilly’s Dungeons and Dragons campaign to get to know her better. So, while the pandemic has brought the difficulty of staying connected to friends and family into sharp relief, She Kills Monsters has been exploring this question for the past 10 years. The play also asks us to consider which friendships are worth keeping. 

 

Lisa Bonos points out that the pandemic has also afforded many the opportunity to strengthen their closest friendships rather than trying to stay in touch with everyone in their circle. This has been especially important for parents who have had to think about whom to call if they get sick and need help with their kids. It’s not just parents - in the past two years we have all had to do some serious “social accounting” (Bonos) to figure out who we can take on our journey as we face wave after wave and variant after variant. 

 

This is in fact what happens when we play Dungeons and Dragons - we find people we can trust and be ourselves with as we take an epic adventure (Vox, 2018). Qui Nguyen says that he wrote this play as a spiritual thank you to his childhood friend, Chuck - for whom the character Chuck Biggs is named (Nguyen, 2021). But by using Dungeons and Dragons to tell this story of friendship, grief, and diversity, he has also found a metaphor to speak to the world we are experiencing ten years after he first wrote She Kills Monsters. 

 

-- Lebo Disele

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References: 

Bono, Lisa. 2021, September 7. “The pandemic is showing us which friendships are worth keeping.” The Washington Post.         https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/01/22/friends-pandemic-casual-pod-social-circle/

Bowden, Bill. 2019, June 20. “Into the American jungle: 44 years later, refugees return to Arkansas, revisit 1st U.S. steps.” Arkansas Democratic Gazette. https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2019/jun/20/44-years-later-refugees-revisit-1st-u-s/

Campbell, Monica. 2015, April 28. “New to America, this young Vietnamese refugee wanted to ‘erase’ his past.” The World. https://theworld.org/stories/2015-04-28/new-america-young-vietnamese-refugee-wanted-erase-his-past

Ku, Lis. 2021, April 12. “Have introverts really fared better?” The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/have-introverts-really-fared-better-in-lockdown-158800

Kuar. 2015, May 1. “40 years ago, Arkansas military base became refugee camp.” Kuar FM 98.1. https://www.ualrpublicradio.org/local-regional-news/2015-05-01/40-years-ago-arkansas-military-base-became-refugee-camp

Nguyen, Qui. 2021, November 4. “Qui Nguyen on the origins of She Kills Monsters and the show’s tenth anniversary.” Concord Theatricals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OBfW6SUI5k 

Robson, David. 2021, July 6th. “Why introverts didn’t actually ‘win’ lockdown.” BBC. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210705-why-introverts-didnt-actually-win-lockdown

Vincentelli, Elisabeth. 2020, July 2. “Queer kids, nerds and sword fights: It’s the hot school play.” The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/02/theater/she-kills-monsters-qui-nguyen.html

Vox. 2018, Jun 14. “Dungeons and Dragons, explained.” Vox. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PEt5RdNHNw