We Play it Because it’s Awesome
“As Agnes looks around, she catches Tilly and Lilith in what looks like some sort of scuffle. The two girls are pushing and grappling with each other. It looks pretty physical. Seeing this, Agnes starts approaching. But before she reaches them, Lilith grabs Tilly by the head and starts aggressively….making out with her.” My reaction, and my castmates’ reactions as well to these scene directions during our first read through of the play She Kills Monsters, could be neatly summarized in Agnes’ next line, “Whoa, what the hell?!” When I was cast as Tilly in this play, I never anticipated reading, or being in a scene where my character kisses another female character.
Up until this production, I had mostly been involved in community and family theater where hardly anyone kissed. Of course, I expected that as an actress I would one day kiss someone in a play. I just never expected that my first kiss onstage would be a makeout session with another girl. This kiss would introduce me to some of the opposition that gay, lesbian and bisexual people encounter in their everyday lives. As I kept reading though the play, I learned that the opposition my character Tilly and her friend Lilith face for being lesbians is only countered through the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, which the girls use to escape their everyday torments. The treatment of Tilly in the play not only made me pity her, but also made me come to a realization that too many teenagers get bullied just for being and feeling who they really are. This was a sad reality that I came to face in this play and also in the world around me. I came to encounter various types of homophobia in the world around me, just for taking on the role of Tilly. The night after our third rehearsal, my mom and I were driving back home from the theater, and I was excitedly telling her all about what we had done that day, not the least of which was use swords, learn how to (safely) punch people and also start blocking the first scenes of the show. What I was avoiding was the makeout scene I would have to do with my friend Annie, who was playing Lilith, Tilly’s girlfriend. I tried to drop hints, but subtlety is not my specialty. When my own mother confronted me about the kissing scene and proclaimed she would not come to see the show, she slammed on the brakes of our car. My stomach plummeted and tears welled up in my eyes. I had never expected my mom to be angry at me just because of who I was performing in a play, and I certainly didn’t expect her to stop the car and shout at me for taking on this role. I was utterly confused and extremely disappointed at her reaction, especially since my uncle, my mother’s cousin, is gay. After all, I had received nothing but support, happiness and maybe a little shock from my friends at school. The next day, when I talked about this reaction to my friend at lunch, she was outraged and vehemently said that I was allowed to play anyone I wanted in a play, no matter who they kiss. My dad also had a funny reaction; when I tentatively told him about the makeout scene, I was very scared that he would chastise me for this character too. I needn’t have worried, though; he said that as long as I wasn’t playing an axe murderer, I could perform as anyone I wanted to.
Just as Tilly imagined herself as a great adventurer who slays dragons and monsters, I began to view this play as a battle or a conquest. Even if my mom said I could not be in the show because of my character’s sexuality, I still needed to do this show for the sake of the cast, the director, and myself. I was not fighting against my mom’s decision outright, but rather fighting against the extreme cases of homophobia in the world around me. As our rehearsals progressed, and I further developed Tilly’s character, I learned more and more about what it meant to be gay in a world that concentrated on being the same as everyone else. During rehearsals, I was able to step into Tilly’s shoes and portray someone confident and badass but also insecure about their identity and interests. I was able to become someone essentially human, and someone who is helping her sister and friends accept differences in their small town. Throughout She Kills Monsters, every single character goes on a journey of acceptance and tries to erase the world of hateful people around them.
But that is not the play’s main focus. While the theme of acceptance and forbearance is strong, I found a much simpler message beneath the world-shaking problems of tolerating others. Ultimately, Tilly and her friends do not use Dungeons & Dragons as an escape. They play it because it has everything they love: magic, dragons, battles, mythical creatures and fun. In Tilly’s words, “We play it because it’s awesome.” And that is why I originally became involved in She Kills Monsters: to have fun. Even though the play widened my awareness of lesbian, gay, and bisexual issues, bigotry and homophobia around me and encouraged me to kill those hateful ‘monsters’, it also encouraged me to step back and have fun in life. Even though playing a lesbian in She Kills Monsters is an entirely new experience for me, I am doing it because I want to become a better actor and have fun while doing so. I still hope that I will convince my mom to come to the show, but that is not the most important topic right now. As I walk into rehearsals every week, still a bit jittery about practicing the make-out scene, I remind myself that I have a right to feel nervous about doing something entirely foreign to me. But all that nervousness soon goes away when I realize my fellow actors are just as nervous as I am, and that our most important job in She Kills Monsters is to have fun and do the best job we can to make the production awesome for all.