The Monsters

STEPHEN KEARLEY:

Ngozi Anyanwu’s THE MONSTERS arrives at New York City Center’s Stage II with the deceptively simple premise of a sibling reunion and then proceeds to knock the emotional wind out of you for ninety straight minutes.

The play brings us face to face with LIL and BIG, half siblings who haven’t seen each other in sixteen years. When they finally collide again, it’s not over coffee or a polite family dinner. It’s inside BIG’s MMA gym, a place built for discipline, sweat, and the occasional controlled beating. Which turns out to be a pretty fitting setting for two people carrying around this much unfinished history.

Lil shows up like a storm that’s been circling the coastline for years. She’s restless, sharp, funny in that slightly chaotic way people get when humor is their main coping mechanism. Big, on the other hand, has the stillness of someone who has spent most of his life learning how to absorb hits without reacting. Their dynamic is fascinating right from the start. They talk, but they also circle each other. Sometimes literally.

Aigner Mizzelle plays LIL with a restless energy that makes you feel like she might bolt out the door at any second. There’s a vulnerability under the humor that slowly creeps up on you. Across from her, Okieriete Onaodowan gives BIG a quiet gravity. He doesn’t waste movement or words, which makes every moment he does speak land with weight.

Ngozi Anyanwu, who also directs, writes with a confidence that trusts the audience to keep up. The play jumps through different points in the siblings’ lives, revealing the events that shaped them and the ways memory can warp the same moment into two completely different truths. It’s messy, complicated, and painfully recognizable for anyone who has ever tried to untangle family history.

The physical world of the show deserves real praise too. The MMA training and sparring sequences feel fully lived in, not like theatrical decoration. The movement, shaped by choreography and fight direction, becomes another language between the characters. Sometimes it says more than the dialogue ever could.

Andrew Boyce’s set plants us firmly inside a worn down gym that looks like it has absorbed years of sweat and frustration. It’s gritty without feeling stylized, and it gives the actors room to move, fight, and occasionally just sit in the quiet weight of the past.

What struck me most about THE MONSTERS is that it refuses to wrap things up neatly. There’s no tidy bow, no big speech that magically repairs sixteen years of distance. Instead, the play lets these two people keep trying. They stumble, they push, they retreat, and sometimes they manage to meet each other halfway.By the end, you realize the title isn’t about villains. It’s about the complicated creatures we become when love and hurt grow up together.And honestly, watching these two siblings slowly fight their way back toward something resembling understanding is one of the most moving things I’ve seen on a stage in a long time.ENORMOUS HAPPY FACE

EVA HEINEMANN:

Stephen Kearley basically said it all. From the moment you meet these two you are rooting for them. We get to see this trusting excited six year old looking up to her protective big half brother who is only sixteen, but they both have a lot to contend with.

They grew up with alcoholic parents. They also have to fight against the disease overtaking them.

They are fighting their demons on and off the ring.

Will they succeed alone or together?

This was monstrously good!

ENORMOUS HAPPY FACE