The Dragoning

The Dragoning is a scripted audio dramedy from Messenger Theatre Company, a not-for-profit theatre company. Its premise fits in a line: women can transform into dragons, and men who crowd, badger or bore them may end up eaten. What gives the idea its bite is where the writing aims it. Cafés, a club and a reality-TV shoot become the stage, and the people in them talk their way around a world that has rearranged itself. The café scenes in 'Five Thousand Years' show the method at its most playful. The Dragon Chino is the bestseller, but the barista prefers the Dragon Repellent, a cappuccino topped with pine sugar because pine supposedly keeps women from turning. One character recalls a customer holding forth on blockchain who 'learned the hard way' when a regular turned dragon, licked her lips, and then went back to her table looking exactly as she had before. 'The Typhoid Mary of Dragons' has a sharper edge. There, a woman worn out by a man who lectures her about her health borrows a customer's phrase, concern trolls, and wonders how he is 'not in the belly of a dragon.' Third-season episodes also bring cameras into the story. Someone who has seen the footage predicts a hit and calls the men at a club 'A-plus villains,' while another character frets that the edit will make him look like a bigot. Backlash gets organized, too. A self-declared winner pitches a movement called the wave that promises to 'turn back the clocks.' In 'Leaders Don't Carry Keys,' a character called FM offers a man named Brent scotch and Cuban cigars after an ambush in a men's room, while a dragon is led toward a cage. Brent is the thread through much of this material; characters address him again and again, and one calls him 'the most visible dragon-whipped guy in the world.' The ensemble changes from episode to episode, with Jeff LaGreca appearing as Dylan in several, Kashaina Johnson producing, Matt Powell on sound design and Scott Ethier composing the theme. Emily Rainbow Davis, the company's artistic director, wrote and directed the series, and she describes it as complete after Season 3. With numbered seasons and a finished story, it makes sense to hear it in order. The feed also carries a bonus: an episode of Metra: A Climate Revolution With Songs, made by cast members Emily Hartford and Ned Hartford, featuring a tree nymph named Aglafinos and a character named Cory. Each Dragoning episode closes with the same advice to stay safe and watch out for dragons, a sign-off that doubles as the whole premise.