Review: Sock 'N' Buskin's SHE KILLS MONSTERS at Kailash Mital Theatre

Sock ‘N’ Buskin’s production of Qui Nguyen’s She Kills Monsters is a vibrant, genre-bending play that fuses fantasy with emotion. At its centre is Agnes Evans (Sadie Cann), a young woman navigating grief after the sudden death of her fifteen year old sister, Tilly (Keira Strober). When Agnes discovers Tilly’s Dungeons & Dragons module, she tries to get to know her sister by stepping into D&D’s fantastical realm filled with monsters, mages, and some unexpected truths.

Sock 'N' Buskin embraces the challenge of a limited budget with heaps of creativity. The costumes (Juliana Morewood and Penny Kyle), props (Zoe-Elizabeth Cook), and puppets (Pilar Fernandez) are cleverly put together and allow the audience to imagine the stage as a battleground when needed. The show’s lighting design (Devan Sharma) deserves praise for its ability to convey emotion using spotlights, blackouts, and shifting tones to freeze scenes, underscore emotions, and emphasize the contrast between reality and fantasy. The accompanying music is an eclectic soundtrack of the 80s and 90s, with hits ranging from the Beastie Boys to Nirvana.

Director Erin Chappel’s vision is one of confidence, with the deliberately off-timed choreography (Seth Fenez) in the dance-off scene adding a layer of humour that resonates with the audience, turning what may have otherwise been seen as a flaw into a win. Chappel’s willingness to take risks demonstrates that the creative team fully understands the play’s irreverent and unapologetically bold spirit.

Cast performances feel authentic; Cann and Strober navigate the story’s emotional terrain with sensitivity, offsetting moments of grief with well-timed humour. Agnes’s transformation from skepticism to empathy is moving, and it is rewarding to see her journey both inside and outside the game. The other player characters, Lilith (Beth Hughes), Kaliope (Vittoria Di Cocco), and Orcus (Kirby Steinke) accurately depict the camaraderie and squabbles that take place during a D&D campaign, without ignoring the fact that their counterparts are teenagers. The Dungeon Master, Chuck (Bo Doyle), is hilarious, portraying a stereotypical nerdy, hormonal adolescent to perfection. The supporting cast (Corey Newman, Sam Tinajero-Alvarado, Emma Parrell, Carys Murray, and Uğur Canpolat) embody fantastical creatures and eccentric human personalities with gusto and make their characters loom larger than life. The role of the narrator (Parrell) cannot be overlooked, as they anchor the story and make it feel truly epic.

Nguyen’s script is a blend of poignancy and comedy that speaks to universal themes of loss, grief, and self-discovery, while celebrating the quirks of geek culture. For fans of Dungeons & Dragons, the show offers a buried treasure trove of gaming references, from character archetypes like paladins and elves to familiar monsters, including bugbears, a gelatinous cube, and even the mighty Tiamat.

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