“She Kills Monsters: Virtual Realms” is a play based on the famed roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons. Throughout the years it has been adapted to fit and change with its ever-growing community. One of these ways is through new mediums such as the play performed by the Mississippi University for Women theatre department this semester.
“She Kills Monster: Virtual Realms” is a play written by Qui Nguyen. It was originally a play written for the stage but was adapted to fit over Zoom by Nguyen when the pandemic hit.
In the play “She kills monsters: Virtual Realms,” Agnes Evans (Kelsey Wilk), who is the popular girl at her high school, ventures to play Dungeons and Dragons to try and get to know her departed sister, Tilly (Marisa Duran).
Dungeons and Dragons had two separate showings over Zoom. The opening night was Thursday, Oct. 27 at 7 p.m., and the other was the next night, also at 7 p.m. The whole aspect of a Zoom play was unfamiliar to most people in the crowd. Even the cast and crew were new to this online aspect of performance. However, The Friday viewing of “She Kills Monsters: Virtual Realms” was nothing short of amazing.
As someone who's not quite familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, that did not stop me from wanting to attend this play, nor did it make me confused during the performance. Every aspect of Dungeons and Dragons was carefully explained during the play but did not take away from the storyline. The actors were amazing at being able to show their emotions, especially through a screen. Near the end when Agnes was talking to her best friend Vera (Brittany Bigot), I can say that I was not the only one who was emotional. That scene had me in tears and was really the cultivation of all the time Agnes was getting to know her sister throughout the play.
I also quite enjoyed the dramatics behind the fairy dying — I think it is quite hard to portray a character in a play dying in a live Zoom setting, but it turned out to be a well-executed scene.
In addition to the actors, the backgrounds and costumes went well with the storyline. The only criticism I have is of the backgrounds. I could tell that some of the actors did not have green screens behind them as the backgrounds would break up if the actor moved across the screen. Of course, that is expected to happen when a play is entirely over Zoom live. There were sometimes awkward silences, but that happens in almost any play whether it is in-person or on Zoom.
I also loved how there was an option at the end to ask questions about the play. From the question series, we got to know a lot about the process of putting on the play from everyone who worked on it. Everything from shipping cost of props, to the changing of virtual backgrounds. Some of the actors went as far as to get their own green screens.
I think the cast crew faculty and staff that put this play together deserve more than a round of applause. I think many audience members were nervous to see what a Zoom play would be like, but everyone delivered. I truly connected with those actors’ characters so well that I believed that I was actually in the storyline with them.