If fantasy fiction is your thing, or you grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons, N.T. Vandecar’s Otherkin might be right up your alley. If not, only the play’s more human elements are likely to grab you.

Vandecar signals from the get-go that we won’t just be spending time on the planet we call Earth when he introduces us in the play’s prologue to Grael (Stephanie Erb), “dragon ruler of the Northern Hemisphere,” Naelyan (Arthur Hanket), “provider of god given water,” and Fafnir (Andre G. Brown), “what gives you light,” a trio of horned and headdressed creatures who’ve got quite the announcement to make to us Earthlings.

The end of the world is just three weeks away!

Cut to London circa today, where 14-year-old Marcy (Nychelle Hawk), who goes by “Olive Bagel-Heart” and identifies as “dragonkin,” is busy podcasting to her fellow “humanoids, animals and other earthly gases” when her adoptive mother Vivian (Erb) calls her down for dinner.

And in case you have any doubt that Marcy/Olive believes she is what she says she is, you have only to look at the wings sprouting from her upper back and the tail growing from her tailbone for proof.

All right, to be fair to Olive, even she will admit that her added appendages are made of papier-mâché, but don’t get it into your head to tell her she may not be the Air Dragon she claims to be.

Mom for one knows better than to do that, though Vivian has other things on her mind today, to wit a meeting with Olive’s biological father Lucas (Justin Lawrence Barnes), whom she hasn’t laid eyes on since Olive’s adoption and who has in the ensuing years come out as gay and married Darren (Brown).

As to why Vivian has suddenly contacted Lucas after more than a decade, it’s because Olive has recently expressed an interest in getting to know her biological parents, and fortunately for her, Lucas seems more than willing to have a meet-and-greet with the daughter he has never met.

 Less pleased about this turn of events is hubby Darren, who had no idea Lucas was even in contact with Vivian, much less meeting her without his knowledge.

And why does it have to be today of all days, precisely when news has just arrived that the seven-month-old Chinese orphan whom Lucas and Darren had lost hope of ever adopting will be arriving in London to meet his proud gay dads just seventeen days from now, news that Lucas would have gotten if he had bothered to charge his cellphone this morning.

If only the world as we know it weren’t scheduled to end in precisely seventeen days.

If you can accept all this as reality, then you won’t have any problem buying into Otherkin’s mix of the real and the fantastical.

If not, you’ll likely find your interest waning post-intermission as fantasy takes over from reality, bodies begin to mutate, and credibility gets stretched to the breaking point, at least for this reviewer.

That’s not to say that Otherkin isn’t without its assets, chief among them newcomer Hawk’s spunky star turn as Olive and Road Theatre favorite Barnes’s appealing, engaging performance as Lucas.

Supporting players Brown, Erb, and Hanket, meanwhile, have a field day playing the godly, dragon-like creatures Vandecar has written for them, and Hanket gets the added pleasure of playing four characters in all including one named Sam The Hippogryph, make of that what you will.

Director Christina Carlisi is clearly on board for the whole adventurous ride as are projection designer Nicholas Santiago, lighting designer Derrick McDaniel, set designer Justin Kelley-Cahill, costume designer Sue Makkoo, prop designer Ann Hearn Tobolowsky, and most especially sound designer Matt Richter, whose sound effects are positively out of this world.

Otherkin is produced by Danna Hyams and Taylor Gilbert. Maurie Gonzalez is production stage manager. Clifton J. Adams, Danny Lee Gomez, Jiliane Brown, Carlisi, and Carlos Lacamara make up the alternate cast. David Elzer is publicist.

 The Road Theatre Company has had considerable success over the past couple of years in integrating fantasy elements with reality in Steve Yockey’s Mercury and Sleeping Giant, both of which I absolutely loved.

Human drama elements aside, for this reviewer at least, lightning doesn’t strike a third time with Otherkin.

The Road Theatre, NoHo Senior Arts Colony, 10747 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood.
www.RoadTheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
September 26, 2025
Photos: Slade Segerson

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Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, N.T. Vandecar, The Road Theatre Company