There’s still a lot of the 2025-2026 New York theater season yet to come but for now I can say that The Monsters, an Off Broadway presentation of the Manhattan Theatre Club, is its best original play. That’s mostly because of what playwright and director Ngozi Anyanwu’s engrossing sibling saga accomplishes in one act and 95 minutes, and it’s also because of what it doesn’t attempt to do.
This outstanding two-hander, a co-production with Two River Theater in Red Bank, N.J., is brought to life by a pair of stunning performers. Or, more to the point, The Monsters is a four-fister. It begins with City Center’s intimate Stage II illuminated by a glint of light that shines off a championship boxing belt. In this corner: Big (Okieriete Onaodowan, a veteran of Hamilton), a formidable mixed martial arts fighter, a king of the ring, a guy known as “The Monster”…but, nearing 40, he’s conscious of losing a step, and the loneliness of gym life is quietly weighing on him. And, in this corner, Lil (Aigner Mizzelle), his half-sister, a would-be “monster” who, nearing 30, is running out of time to make it as a competitor. But she wants her shot, and she wants Big to train her–no matter that they haven’t seen or spoken to another in 16 years.
Of course this chasm of communication does matter. But The Monsters bobs and weaves around it, as Lil makes small talk, jokes around, and tries to engage her half-brother. This is no easy task, as Big is in perpetual shut-down mode. Eventually he agrees to take her on, which means Lil needs to break some bad habits. One of these, alcoholism, is one they have in common, and one that Big has learned to curb. Lil, worryingly, shows the signs of addiction. Flashbacks to their tumultuous childhood show the scars of it. And here we see the beauty of the two actors. Mizzelle, an actor new to me, fully embraces being a little kid, indulgent in the cocoon that the protective Big has built to shield her from the wrath of their drunken father. Onaodowan’s body language relaxes into adolescence in these scenes but his voice remains that of a weary adult, always steeled against trouble, letting little in. They make Anyanwu’s affectingly written scenes all the more truthful and poignant.
Speaking of truthful, the boxing scenes. There’s real alchemy at work on Andrew Boyce’s small, spare gym set, which you can all but smell. With fight director Gerry Rodriguez and MMA consultant Sijara Eubanks the actors have created stage magic well beyond expensive special effects. These sequences are clearly rehearsed but they can’t look rehearsed; they have to be real, and convincing they are. (There’s also some choreography, too, by Rickey Tripp.) Toward the end, as both characters make progress on their goals (and backslide, too; the action consumes several years), Rocky is kiddingly evoked. But, no kidding; all of this comes together modestly, and spectacularly.
The material is close to Anyanwu’s heart, and I’m intrigued to learn that she’ll play Lil in the show’s West Coast debut. Every element is seamlessly integrated, including Mika Eubanks’ costumes (pink for Lil as she goes pro), Cha See’s lighting design (that suggestive little glimmer is the perfect way to start the show), and Mikaal Sulaiman’s original music and sound design, conjuring unseen monsters of its own in the flashbacks. What I appreciated about The Monsters beyond the excellence of the production is that its larger themes and metaphors, regarding Blackness and the weight of the past, are submerged. Avoiding the trap that so many other plays fall into it doesn’t attempt to spell everything out, nor does it wander into other concerns besides Big and Lil trying to harmonize after so much distance. It does just enough to pack a punch.
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