‘The Twenty-Sided Tavern’: A Hilariously Hearty Comedy Concoction

Playing Dungeons & Dragons with friends has been one of my life’s great joys the past few years, but it’s a difficult hobby to describe to other people. Yes, it’s a ‘game’, but there’s no winning or losing per say – though I can describe it as collaborative storytelling all I like, I find the best way to explain D&D to someone is to show it to them. 

Luckily, for the next three months in Sydney, you can see what Dungeons & Dragons is all about at The Twenty-Sided Tavern, a wonderful mix of theatre and tabletop roleplaying that’s sure to delight pre-existing fans and create a whole crowd of new ones. 

Part of The Twenty-Sided Tavern’s appeal, much like the game it’s based on, is its audience interactivity and sheer unpredictability. Using a web-based app on your phone, you get to help the adventurers solve puzzles and make story or character decisions that impact the show in meaningful ways, leaving the highly talented cast of performers onstage to rapidly improvise. 

Some of these decisions include which character the performers will play during your show, or potentially who will live and die. In that sense, it makes the production feel more like a game of Dungeons & Dragons – your involvement in what happens onstage is far greater than what it would be if you were simply watching people just play the tabletop game. 

The brilliant cast of The Twenty-Sided Tavern

But what really makes The Twenty-Sided Tavern tick is its brilliant cast who bring this setting to life – no matter how ridiculous things get. Trubie-Dylan Smith, Eleanor Stankiewciz and Atlas Adams play the adventuring party, and each comes into the night with three prepared characters in a certain archetype (Trickster, Spellcaster or Warrior) that the audience chooses before the saga begins. 

These three performers are simply remarkable, and on the night I attended were effortlessly hilarious while managing to deftly weave character arcs into their performances. The bond between these three is deeply apparent when you watch the show as Smith, Stankiewciz and Adams easily pick up and riff off of each other’s seemingly endless hilarity. 

Meanwhile, William Kasper and Zoë Harlen do excellent work as the Dungeon Master and Tavern Keeper respectively. Kasper is able to show off his wide range as a performer portraying a huge number of NPCs, all while narrating the story and keeping the game moving in a timely fashion. Harlen’s role is more supportive, but she nonetheless shines in helping to bring the game to life and banter with her castmates; one moment from the show I attended in particular where took over as Dungeon Master for a short time proved how indispensable she is to its function.

An unexpected sense of immersion

Yet the biggest strength of The Twenty-Sided Tavern is how immersive it is. As an avid D&D fan, I was expecting to have a good time with it, but I didn’t anticipate how authentic a representation the production would be. 

In the final battle, when two of the characters were on the cusp of death, I felt something similar to those profound moments of fear in my own campaign – a realisation that I was actually invested in what happened to these characters, despite the relatively short time that I had been with them. 

I think it’s that feeling that makes The Twenty-Sided Tavern feel so highly emblematic of D&D. Yes, you’ll laugh so hard that you cry, you’ll cringe as one of the players rolls a low dice number at a key moment, and you’ll be wondering just how the hell that stupid plan worked out. But above everything else, you’ll care about what’s happening and what’s coming next – and there’s no better representation of Dungeons & Dragons than that. 

The Twenty-Sided Tavern is playing at the Sydney Opera House until March 8.