Expect the unexpected from a delightfully bonkers night at this pub

Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty-Sided Tavern
Sydney Opera House Studio, December 18
Until March 8
Reviewed by MICHAEL IDATO
★★★★

In an era when watching people play tabletop games has become a virtual entertainment genre of its own, you could be forgiven for walking into Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty-Sided Tavern a little uncertain of what you’re going to get. It’s not every show where the plot twists are determined on the fly, and you get to take your drink to your seat.

In truth, the title is a little bit of misdirection. This isn’t just watching people play the Dungeons & Dragons game, though there is dice-rolling, nail-biting thrills and gasps galore. It’s more akin to an improv comedy show in which the cast play D&D character archetypes, the outcomes are decided by dice roll (and audience intervention), and the cast share the stage with a “dungeon master” (William Kasper) and a “rules lawyer” Zoe Harlen.

Atlas Adams, Eleanor Stankiewicz and Trubie-Dylan Smith in Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty-Sided Tavern.Credit: Daniel Boud

The show’s three “player” leads – Atlas Adams, Eleanor Stankiewicz and Trubie-Dylan Smith – are essentially recast each night, though they hew to three of the game’s key archetypes: Adams is a warrior, Stankiewicz a spell-caster and Smith a trickster. On opening night Adams was John-Paul, an unsteady-on-his-feet monk; Stankiewicz was Dustin, an “undead” wizard; and Smith was Tamberlaine, a bard of uncertain sexuality.

In accordance with the game’s rules, each character possesses certain skills and some access to magic, though much of the narrative is pushed forward using the roll of a 20-sided dice, but also choices made by the audience using a phone app. It’s the audience intervention that turns The Twenty-Sided Tavern into an unpredictable hoot.

Rules lawyer Zoe Harlen and dungeon master William Kasper (rear) with Trubie-Dylan Smith, Eleanor Stankiewicz and Atlas Adams in Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty-Sided Tavern.Credit: Daniel Boud

This is a show very much for the mainstream, though there are small details to tickle the hardcore fans. A shelf of vintage rule books features a classic adventure from 1983: The Assassin’s Knot, by Len Lakofka. A hardcover book from the game’s unpopular fourth edition is used to prop up a short seat leg. (And, let’s be honest, that’s about all it’s good for.) And Adams wields one of the game’s most versatile tools: the 10-foot pole.

There are some curious creative notes: a recurring HECS debt joke that might have been intended to localise the humour but instead makes it feel undergraduate; there is an unexpected reference to dollars (it’s gold pieces, surely?) and a 100-sided dice is used, which wins an “oooh” from the audience but, frankly, is not one of the game’s “polyhedral” dice, based on the five mathematical Platonic solids. (Sorry to go all O.G. on you there.)

As with most improv shows, the absurd touches make the experience most fun. Kasper’s dungeon master has to sub as a raft of other characters but finishes the night as a sinister potato who looks uncomfortably like a fantasy version of Little Edie from Grey Gardens, and there is a thrilling and smoky finale where you half expect Helen Mirren to come wafting out of the shadows in her Excalibur garb. It’s delightfully bonkers.