UC San Diego MFA graduate Ngozi Anyanwu describes her play "The Monsters" as “a love letter to sibling relationships,” and sets it against the backdrop of mixed martial arts, or MMA. The play had its first San Diego preview Tuesday at La Jolla Playhouse's Mandell Weiss Forum.
Anyanwu says she is a "lover, not a fighter," but she arrives for her interview bursting with energy and looking like she could take on all challengers. She took on writing "The Monsters" in part as a challenge to herself.
"I really do make family plays at the end of the day, and I was interested in a small-big play. Can you make a play that is just intimate, that is just two people, where you do feel like the world is big, but can you really hone in on them? So I was interested in the challenge of a two-hander," Anyanwu said.
Initially, she came to theater wanting to act, and while at UC San Diego, she decided, "I should probably write something until someone puts me in something. And then people happen to have liked the writing, so the writing kind of took off and allowed for me to perform. So a lot of it was a channel for me to perform, and then I found out that I had more things to say as a writer, so the writing kept coming."
She wrote the play but has also directed it, and now she takes on the role of LIL opposite Sullivan Jones (HBO’s "The Gilded Age") as BIG for the La Jolla Playhouse's production of "The Monsters."
LIL has been estranged from her brother but has been observing him from afar. BIG is an aging but respected fighter in the local mixed martial arts circuit. When little sis appears unexpectedly on his doorstep, he must face their past and decide what this sibling relationship can be moving forward.
Anyanwu was attracted to the world of MMA because her real brother is a retired fighter.
"So that was something that I was really interested in, in exposing that kinship, that lifestyle," Anyanwu said. "I was really interested in the duality between the violence of what the sport is, but also the kind of art and technique that is also mixed into it and the people that I think you have one idea about them, but actually being close to them and watching him train and watching the camaraderie and the kinship that he felt and the brotherhood that he really entered himself into, I was really interested in exposing the duality of that."
There is MMA fighting on stage, but don't expect it to be what you would see at a real MMA bout.
"I was really interested in the theatricality of the entertainment because I'm like this is actually also a form of entertainment that we watch. But let's add some dialogue and some sport into it," Anyanwu said. "So we have a fight choreographer and a fight consultant. And I was just really interested in the authenticity of it. So we brought on this amazing woman, Sijara Eubanks, who's been with me since I directed it in New York, and actually since I wrote the play. She's a former UFC fighter, an MMA fighter and a coach. So I really was interested in having someone who is integrated into that world. I think of her as my cultural consultant, essentially to keep the thing authentic. This play is so much about the body and the text, right? And so what you're going to see is a mixture of that, right? It was my interpretation of MMA, and I really wanted to show how beautiful it was. So you're going to actually see like us doing some moves, but you're also going to be seeing us like not necessarily fighting other people and fighting each other."
As a UC San Diego grad, Anyanwu is also scheduled to meet with students on campus. She came to playwriting while at UC San Diego, and her advice to students is, "To create, to take this thing into your own hands, that you are the creator of your future. Don't rely on anyone to pick you. We are in this really weird, scary time with all the technology that is given to us, but actually there's so much advantage that you can take out of that. Don't wait for anybody, because no one's waiting for you. And that might feel really scary, but actually it's very, very liberating. So know the fact that no one's really waiting — that you got to go now and jump forward and do it yourself, and that doesn't have to be scary. You have people near you that are trying to do the same thing if you look."
"The Monsters" runs through June 28 at La Jolla Playhouse's Mandell Weiss Forum.
