MONKS - REVIEW OF 2026 TARRAGON THEATRE EXTRA SPACE PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas 

As you walk into the Tarragon Theater’s Extra Space you see a seriously cowled monk and hear even more serious church music. The play you are about to see is titled Monks and neither the monk nor the music should surprise you. That is until the performance starts and the two monks finish with you as an audience member.

The two monks (Veronica Hortiguela and Annie Lujan) tell us that they are alone in a monastery in Spain and get visitors, (the audience, of course), only once every five years. One of the monks sports a mustache and the other one comes out of a barrel after the performance begins. They have a donkey that grazes in the meadow and enviably does nothing but we will not meet him until later.

This is a play, a performance really, that depends almost entirely on the involvement of the audience, the enthusiastic participation of the spectators in the performance and the ability of the monks to evoke hilarity. There is no apparent plot but there is plenty of audience involvement and hilarity encouraged by the audience.

I am not giving enough details. The monks run around the stage and go up the steps into the audience. They ask us if we respect Satan and the audience responds with a resounding Yes. They give us lentils to share and we toss them towards them. Everything is done for the sole purpose of evoking howls of laughter. Everything does.

Annie Lujan and Veronica Hortiguela.  Photo by Jae Yang

They start spraying members of the audience with small water sprayers. Some members of the audience are armed with sprayers and they join in getting people wet. Are they plants or were they given the sprayers on arrival? I don’t know and I don’t care. 

The monastery has some rules but I am not sure what they are but one of them I think is to do nothing (their preference) and look after a donkey that grazes happily in the meadow. But the donkey finally appears – the two actors under a sheet with a donkey’s head and a donkey’s exposed derriere. Its tail falls off and one of the monks must pin its tail on the aforementioned part of its anatomy. It lasts a few minutes and I cannot do justice to the gales of laughter that it generated.

Hortiguela and Lujan are the Creators, Directors, Set, Costume, Sound and Props Designers. It is a show that depends almost entirely on audience control and reaction. The audience was  primed for laughter right from the start and their enthusiasm did not waiver for the seventy minutes’ duration. The performance does have a quietly lyrical end.

Monks was first produced at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2014 and was staged at the Theatre Centre in Toronto in March 2025. It was also seen at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer. It is a miracle of acting, creativity, energy, laughter, audience participation and showmanship. Have I praised it enough? I intended to.
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Monks by Veronica Hortiguela and Annie Julan continues until November 15, 2026, at the Tarragon Theatre's Extra Space, 30 Bridgman Ave. Toronto, Ontario.  www.tarragontheatre.com

James Karas is the Culture Editor of The Greek Press, Toronto