Madeline Key and Tori Bertocci in Flying V Fights: Heroes and Monsters. Photo by Ryan Maxwell Photography

By DCist Contributor Missy Frederick

If box office results teach us anything, it’s that America’s appetite for watching heroes destroy bad guys is limitless. Flying V capitalizes on that desire in Flying V Fights: Heroes & Monsters, capturing those face-offs with the theater’s trademark mix of athleticism, stage combat skills, choreography, and puppetry.

Heroes & Monsters, a follow-up to last year’s “fight album” Love is a Battlefield, is a series of vignettes. Some are familiar, playing out as allusions to vampires, werewolves, and iconic characters like Little Red Riding Hood. Others are more obscure (the scene “Date Night,” for example, is an adaptation of by a lesser-known graphic novel of a similar name). Still others seem to spring fully hatched from the minds of the cast members themselves, such as a fantasy dream sequence between a loyal, swashbuckling teddy bear aiming to protect his owner from creatures that go bump in the night.

The scenes in Heroes & Monsters are constructed to show off the unique talents of particular cast members: “Devil at the Bar,” for example, wouldn’t be complete without Jon Jon Johnson*’s mesmerizing fiddle playing, while the lithe agility of Tim Torre or the physical comedy gifts of Madeline Key all get a turn at being the focus of a number. Each performance is set to a smartly crafted soundtrack, mixing familiar names like Lana Del Rey with less recognizable instrumental and techno beats.

There are a few clunky moments—transitions between scenes could be tightened, and the superhero Cliff Notes-inspired opening number would whiz by more quickly with less drawn-out pacing. But directors Jonathan Ezra Ruin and Jason Schlafstein usually manage to rein any potential for self-indulgence in the 90 minute show.

Not every scene in Heroes & Monsters has a stereotypical happy ending. But the production is skilled at getting to the emotional core of the stories they’re telling (particularly moving: an ode to Superman set to The New Pornographers’ “Adventures in Solitude” that drives home the heartbreak that happens when the hero’s friends age around him). There are some deeper themes there, even if the flashy fight scenes might immediately draw more after-show chatter from the audience.

Flying V Fights: Heroes & Monsters runs through June 28 at the Bethesda Writing Center. Tickets ($15) are available online.
*Corrected