Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Two siblings on stage. One is a winning mixed martial arts fighter. The other is his kid sister, who comes to find him after 16 years. Well, she's not a kid anymore. She works at Applebee's and maybe likes booze a little too much. Her brother had the same habit and is in recovery. It might be something they both got from their shared father. It isn't all they took from their family.

Now she wants to get in the ring, and he offers to train her. As they venture into the world of MMA fighting, what it takes to win, what it takes to get hurt, when do you give in, you realize the fighting is a metaphor for a lot in their relationship, but don't be fooled. There is a lot of fighting in the show. Sometimes it's balletic, sometimes it's fierce. The play is called The Monsters, and it's playing at City Center on 55th Street as part of the Manhattan Theater Club. The New York Times called it a critic's pick and said the two leads are hypnotic. Did you hear that? You're hypnotic. Joining us now is-- Okay, I'm going to try. Ready? Okieriete Onaodowan. That was close. That was close enough. Nice to meet you.

Okieriete Onaodowan: Nice to meet you.

Alison Stewart: Also joining us is Aigner Mizzelle. Nice to meet you as well.

Aigner Mizzelle: Nice to meet you.

Alison Stewart: All right, so the characters are Big and Lil. Ok, what's up with Big when we meet him?

Okieriete Onaodowan: When you meet him at the top, he's just finished defending his championship. He's won, and he's about to continue on with his life as he's meticulously constructed, he created a nice little comfortable bubble. He has his routine. He does what he does. He's not overly happy, but he's not drowning in alcohol. It's a win all around.

Alison Stewart: Do you think he's a good MMA fighter?

Okieriete Onaodowan: I think he's a good MMA fighter.

Alison Stewart: Could he be a great one?

Okieriete Onaodowan: I think if he was 10 years younger, he could be a great one. He just started late, so for his age, he's phenomenal, but because of that, there's a ceiling now that he's reached.

Alison Stewart: What does MMA mean for him in his life?

Okieriete Onaodowan: Structure. It's his structure. It's his motivation. It's his carrot, per se. Every time he wins a fight, I got to win today. Am I on top of the world? Can I go back and change whatever demons that haunt me? No, but moving forward, I can get ready? I can train. Then, when I win, I see the result of my hard work and training. It's very, very visceral and very immediate.

Alison Stewart: Aigner, what's up with Lil when we meet her?

Aigner Mizzelle: She's just lost her mom not too long ago, and the last family member she has is her brother. She sets up a wild plan to somehow live next to him, or seek shelter near him, or find some type of housing nearby so that she could catch him after one of the fights and rekindle their relationship that has been estranged for 16 years.

Alison Stewart: It's interesting. She's kept up with him. She knows his fight, she knows his wins, she knows his weaknesses. Why she kept up with her brother, even though it's been 16 years since he saw her?

Aigner Mizzelle: I think Big is a little superhero. I think because he left when she was still kind of young, young enough to have this version of him, this imagined fantastical Big Brother superhero that saves the day all the time. I think she locked that image and held onto it for herself to honestly sustain her, something to hold onto. In all the absence, I think she created a version of him in her head and held it close through life as life came at her.

Alison Stewart: Ok, what did you think of Big when you read this script?

Okieriete Onaodowan: I wanted to see him come to life. I also felt that Big represented a lot of young Black men in the way that Ngozi wrote him in a very honest way, where sometimes in theater you have a kind of person that's kind of-- You see the theater version. They're overly articulate. They're expressing everything. They somehow know exactly how to say what, and they're overly poetic.

One thing I loved about him is I really felt the essence of a human that's like, "I don't really talk that much. I don't really like speaking that much. I keep to myself." I relate to that very much so. I really felt that in this piece. He was a fighter. I've trained myself, and I wanted the opportunity to continue to do that. To get paid to do that, hooray. Really, it's just the really solitary nature of him, but that he feels so much and doesn't know what to do with that, which I think a lot of people, male or female, can relate to.

Alison Stewart: Aigner, what did you think when you first read Lil?

Aigner Mizzelle: Oh, I thought she was a gift. I thought she was a gift to many young people growing up in their bodies. However you identify, to grow up in a body for it to change on you, to learn what protection is, to figure out who you are through a crazy, loud, scary household, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I thought that the story was a gift to people who are maybe just trying to figure it out and figure out how to keep trying.

I think Lil is her own version of superhero. To be abandoned and then to arrive at the thesis of I'm going to just protect myself is something that I think a lot of young people today who are growing up in such a fast time are learning that so early. You learn so early that you only have you sometimes, or it can feel like that sometimes.

Alison Stewart: When Big meets Lil, he's not so sure about her, Ok. He's very wary of her initially. As adults, why is he so unsure of his sister?

Okieriete Onaodowan: I think it has more to do with him than her. I think he doesn't want to deal-- He's been running away from his past and how he left things. When he sees her, I feel like it's like, "Are we going there? What do you want? Are you going to ask me about that? Are you mad about that? I'm not trying to go back there. If you're trying to say, why? Where were you? I moved on with your life. Good luck with everything. I left you in good hands," so on and so forth. I really think that moment is really more about him being afraid of having to confront his past and how he left things, which you'll find out in the show, but he's not too proud of how he left things.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to a clip from The Monsters where Lil is asking questions of Big. He asks her how he knows he's going to win. Let's listen.

Big: I'm ready. I'm ready. I take one look at him, and I know.

Lil: Know what?

Big: I know when I'm going to win. I know I got him.

Lil: How do you know

Big: He ain't got that look in his eye?

Lil: What look?

Big: The look that says, yes-- He ain't hungry. Not like me. He ain't starving.

Lil: What are you starving for?

Big: Everything. Everything.

Alison Stewart: That's from The Monsters. Lil is extra. She's ready to go at all times. Why is she in such a hurry to get wherever she's going?

Aigner Mizzelle: I think Lil's version of urgency is through levity and energy. I think it's a defense mechanism. I think it's anxiety. I think it's like the rush to nowhere, but it all feels like it's crashing down right now so we have to solve it right now. Who are you and who have you been for the last 16 years? Go. I think she's just like, "Tell me everything right now, because I need to know right now. I need to know that you're not going anywhere right now. That we're starting our new life as brother and sister forever and always right now." I think it's that urgent for her.

Alison Stewart: After they meet up, Ok, Big offers to drive her home after hearing she took a bus from another great part of town. In that moment, are we supposed to experience a sense of love he has for her, or is he just worried about her? What is that sort of signaling to us that he wants to at least drive her home?

Okieriete Onaodowan: That exactly what you expressed is exactly what it's signaling. We don't know yet. Yes. At least for me, I want it to be. Oftentimes in real life, that's the one thing about theater that sometimes, where it's like-- I think, what makes this piece different and pieces like this that I love is you shouldn't always know what's going on, because that's what makes it feel like life. If I watch an interaction, I'm like, "What are they thinking?" If you're on the subway and you see a couple talking, you're like, "I wonder. I wonder, I wonder." That's the beauty of that moment is. We don't really know yet. He knows.

For Big, it very much so is I have younger siblings. You go back to, "Are you good? I have so many years where I was looking out for you." It's like he just gets, "What are you doing in that neighborhood. You shouldn't. Fine. Let me just get you there." It's all of those things. The audience is supposed to wonder, what is that? Is it love? Is it guilt? Is it a sense of responsibility? I think it's all of those things as well. That, at the end of the day, it's like, that's the beauty, I think, of Big in that moment in that first scene. No matter what, there still is that instinct of, I want you to be okay.

Alison Stewart: We're talking about a play called The Monsters, about a pair of siblings, their relationship over time. We're speaking with actors Aigner Mizzelle and Ok Onaodowan. We meet these two in the middle of their life. We get to see them in the future, but we also get to see them in the past, when they're kids, what that relationship. Ok, what do you do with your body to let us know that this is Big as a younger man? Because he's a soft guy, actually.

Okieriete Onaodowan: Throughout the course of the play, you see some events that caused the hardening. With Big to showcase the difference, it can get very technical just in terms of where I place my voice. There's just kind of a weight that older Big just has that younger Big doesn't. His shoulders aren't as dropped or hunched over. As a fighter, you create the shell when you're fighting, and he's not there yet. He moves slightly differently. He's a little lighter on his feet. There's classic. His chest is up a little bit, just like he hasn't been hit to cause him to close and protect himself. Those are the things that I think differentiate between Big when he's older and Big when he's younger. Really, how he moves, how open his chest is, and how he moves through the space versus when he's older, you see the wear and tear. He's tired, he's fighting, he's training.

Alison Stewart: Aigner, you play an innocent, or is she innocent when she's younger?

Aigner Mizzelle: In some ways. In some ways, she doesn't have the language for everything yet. I think she's aware. I think it's weird around here. I think it's loud around here. I think it's scary around here as a little person. I have fun with my brother, but I know that when we're in this room, when I'm in-- The small version of her is like, "I know that when I'm in this room with this guy, I can be imaginative and free and fun."

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to you from Monsters. This is you as your younger selves. This is Lil and Big.

Big: Big, I'm I pretty?

Lil: No.

Big: No?

Lil: You're beautiful.

Big: I thought so. Billy said I was ugly.

Lil: Well, Billy's a dumb.

Big: Yes, I think so too.

Lil: You want me to kill him?

Big: Mm, no. Big, that would be crazy.

Lil: Just doing my due diligence. Do you like Billy?

Big: Ew. No. I like Yasmine. Yes. She has these long braids with the barrettinum, and she's so pretty, and she's so cool. Yes. Is that okay?

Lil: Yes. Boys are Trash.

Alison Stewart: That's from The Monsters. Had you ever been in a two-hander before?

Aigner Mizzelle: No.

Alison Stewart: What do you know about a two-hander now that you didn't know before?

Aigner Mizzelle: Well, once the train starts, it doesn't stop, and you are the conductor and the rider in the train. Got to have an amazing scene partner to be on the ride with. It's so fun to transfer who's driving, who's steering, who's in charge of the direction. It's fun to have that exchange. It's also a lot of energy. It's also go, go, go, and you can't hide. You can't hide. It's not like, "Oh, we're going to do our princess track and show up in our one scene at the end of the play and then head out." Once it starts, it's all you, and it's all the connection that you see on stage, and you have to keep fighting to hold the play and move it to the end. It's the fight, and you fight from the beginning to the very end.

Alison Stewart: Ok, what do you like about being in a two-hander?

Okieriete Onaodowan: I like that there are less variables. Because there are just two artists on stage, it really is, once you're locked in, you're locked in. If we're on the same page, we're good. There's not a new energy coming in. I also like being active. I like doing this. I like that once we start, we start, and we go. There is no break. There is no step off. There is no way of getting out of the moment. It's just going like life. It's just next moment, next moment, next moment, next moment.

Another thing is that I think it really creates a different kind of relationship with the audience because it's not like there's another person you come and see. You're just with us. It's like watching a series where it's just focusing on one character. You see every step where we go. For that time, it's really all of us together for that whole time, which I think is beautiful.

Alison Stewart: It's so interesting. The audience gets really involved. In the show I went to see, somebody yelled out an answer to a question that you asked.

Okieriete Onaodowan: Oh, you heard that. Yes.

Aigner Mizzelle: I know exactly the show you're talking about.

Alison Stewart: Does the audience get super into it? Have you noticed? Can you notice from that stage?

Okieriete Onaodowan: Oh, yes. It's a really intimate space. It's one of those spaces where hear everything. Anything you're doing, we hear it. Even if it's rummaging for your bag for something or whispering. There's no such thing as whispering in that space. Yes, we do get a lot of that.

Aigner Mizzelle: Or even having catharsis. We can hear when the sniffles increase. We can hear when people are like, "Oh, my God." We can hear when people are trying to get it together because they're choked up. The list goes on. We can hear when people are excited to be on the ride and respond to the show as well.

Alison Stewart: You had to have so many different movement specialists in this production. What was one thing that they told you that has stuck with you for each show, whether it was your fight choreographer, the choreographer choreographer? What was something they told you which was really important to you?

Okieriete Onaodowan: Hmm. That's a good question. For me, it was just keep the energy up and stay like there is no Wednesday matinees. Especially with Ricky, when we would go back and do it again, he really kept his foot on the gas. Then I constantly hear him saying, like, "Commit, commit, commit". Just giving 110% physically. The greatest response I've been getting for both of us is they're exhausted because we don't stop. You could tell when someone's marking. There is no marking. Ricky was teaching us and going through stuff when he had hip surgery, but I'd still see him get up, stretch every day, work on it with a bad hip, go through the motions.

Alison Stewart: Oh, my gosh.

Okieriete Onaodowan: That really inspired me. I was like, "Well, if he's still getting it, I have no excuse."

Alison Stewart: How about for you? What was a piece of information that one of the choreographers or the fight trainers gave you that's important to you every night?

Aigner Mizzelle: They all are such a huge part of what I replay before doing this show. Just having Sijara Eubanks in the room is a big deal for me. She's one of two Black women who hold the title that she holds. Just to have her there, being like, "You're doing a good job."

Alison Stewart: She's the fight consultant.

Aigner Mizzelle: Hi, everybody. She's the fight consultant. Just for her to be present just felt like motivation for me. It felt like history was in the room, and therefore, I'm a part of something really big and important. That is motivation. I think the presence of our team was just enough, and they were all invested into making sure we could do this and we could do it safely and that we do it full out.

Alison Stewart: I think it was a talk-back that I went to. They had kids there. It was like a family show. The kids could stay after, and they could ask you questions. Were you there that day?

Aigner Mizzelle: I wasn't there.

Okieriete Onaodowan: Yes. I was there.

Alison Stewart: You were there. What did they want to know? What did the kids want to know?

Okieriete Onaodowan: Well, it's fascinating. From what I remember, they were just like, "How do you physically do all that stuff?"Then they were like, emotionally. That was a big thing for them. They're like, "How do you emotionally do that? I don't understand. How do you get into that character?" They felt it so much so they're just wondering, "How do you just feel that? How do you feel all those years of whatever, what have you?"

That's not what they specifically said, but they focused on those high emotional moments. They're like, "How do you get it in you so that I can feel it, too?" Was the main question that they asked, which I was really happy about. That means they were affected. They were really affected emotionally. Normally, when you do a student matinee, you'll hear fidgeting or talking or something. At that age, there's so many distractions now more than ever. I was so focused that when it was quiet, they were just really, really locked in. Emotionally, I felt like that's the thing, the emotionality that they were really compelled by. Like, how did you guys do that?

Aigner Mizzelle: They asked a similar set of questions in Two River, the high school students. They were similarly like, "Are y'all okay?"

Alison Stewart: Oh, that's sweet.

Aigner Mizzelle: Like, "How much of this is really who you are and how much of it is who you're playing, and how do you safely go in between the two?" I was like, "Oh-oh, you got me. That is the question."

Alison Stewart: The play is called The Monsters. It's produced by Manhattan Theater Club, to be performed at City Center through March 22. My guests have been Aigner Mizzelle and Ok Onaodowan. Thank you for being with us.

Aigner Mizzelle: Thank you.

Okieriete Onaodowan: Thank you so much for having us. Greatly appreciate it.

Aigner Mizzelle: This is wonderful. Thanks for coming to see it.

Alison Stewart: Of course.

Okieriete Onaodowan: Yes. Truly supporting off-Broadway. Let's go.