Sophia Walker portrays the writer Suzanne Alexander in Ohio State Murders.Michael Cooper/Supplied
- Title: Ohio State Murders
- Written by: Adrienne Kennedy
- Directed by: Philip Akin
- Actors: Sophia Walker, André Morin
- Company: Shaw Festival
- Venue: Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre
- City: Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
- Year: Runs until Oct. 3
There exists a subgenre of solo show that, when executed perfectly, can shake the very foundation of the theatre in which it’s performed.
These plays start out innocuously enough: In Sea Wall, a father remembers an idyllic holiday with his family. In Girls & Boys, a wife recalls falling in love with her husband. In Fleabag, an unnamed millennial applies for a temp position.
But in the hands of a master playwright, those expositions then crumble away, leaving behind a much more visceral story of heartache. In the end, Sea Wall’s vacation doesn’t end so sunnily; Girls & Boys doesn’t culminate in a wedding or children; Fleabag’s job interview devolves into a requiem for its protagonist’s youth.
On the surface, Ohio State Murders has little to do with the above plays (all of which happen to be British). Written by American playwright Adrienne Kennedy, it’s arguable Ohio State Murders is even a solo at all: Another person, a professor played by André Morin, shares space with writer Suzanne Alexander (Sophia Walker), who within the framework of the play has been invited to speak at her alma mater about the violent imagery that pervades her work.
André Morin appears with Walker in a few key moments, but for the most part, the stage is hers alone.Michael Cooper/Supplied
But much like the above scripts, Kennedy’s play, about the thick current of racism at Ohio State University (where Kennedy began studying in 1949), packs a painful punch. For most of its 50-minute runtime, Walker occupies the Shaw Festival’s intimate Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre alone. She wanders scenic designer Melanie McNeill’s abstract set, a book-studded ribbon of hardwood loops, in a cloud of memories: She never did memorize the university’s complicated geography, she tells us, a whisper of a laugh at the base of Walker’s throat.
But, as implied by its title, the fictional Ohio State Murders soon turns gruesome. While fighting to be accepted as an English major – a privilege seldom offered to Black students in Jim Crow-era Ohio – Suzanne unexpectedly finds herself pregnant. No longer can she rely on her smarts to advance her through her studies: Before long, she’s banished from her dorm and thrust out into the world of single motherhood.
There’s the small matter, as well, of her twins’ father, a professor named Robert Hampshire close to 10 years Suzanne’s senior. When she tells her mentor of her condition, he rejects her – the babies could not possibly be his, he spits.
And then, all at once, Ohio State Murders mutates from a sad story to a horrifying one. And while director Philip Akin stages the work as a period piece – McNeill, also the production’s costume designer, dresses Walker in clothes appropriate to a woman who attended college in the early 1950s – the play remains as relevant today as it was when Kennedy wrote it in 1991.
Indeed, the circumstances Suzanne describes – a racist faculty, a murderous ex, a university unwilling to protect its most vulnerable students – are hardly confined to the play’s 1950s setting, or even to the 20th century. A 2023 study by the Gallup Center on Black Voices found that approximately one in five Black postsecondary students feels discriminated against at school; a 2024 study by the McMaster Students Union Diversity + Equity Network found that 37 per cent of students had witnessed racism on campus.
In this way, Kennedy’s disquisition on race and its role in North American academia couldn’t feel more timely – or more bleak.
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Akin directs a small, biting production that zeroes in on Walker as Suzanne. The play’s pacing and impact rest solely on her shoulders – while Morin appears in a few key moments, his role is effectively an extension of McNeill’s set. His physical presence adds context to Suzanne’s story; his shadow, stretched long across the Studio Theatre floor, adds tension to it.
But Walker, among this country’s most engrossing actors, is on showcase as she digs into Suzanne. Barely perceptible changes to her voice and physicality make it seem as if Suzanne has actually gone back in time to some younger version of herself; tiny shifts in the actor’s tempo and volume make the writer’s emotional journey feel immediate and raw.
Kennedy’s text at times gets the better of the actor – the performance I attended included a number of uncharacteristic line flubs and repeated passages – but on the whole, Walker achieves what’s demanded of her by a script that largely leaves her exposed to the audience.
In the end, Kennedy returns to the conditions of Ohio State Murders’ given circumstances: Suzanne, onstage at the school where she so brutally came of age, is giving a talk about her writing. Her conclusion is as matter-of-fact as the story that precedes it: “And that is the source of the violent imagery in my work,” she declares, tears glinting in her eyes.
The lights fade; the moment lingers. For a moment, Suzanne’s story is only Suzanne’s story, an awful, singular confluence of the sexism and racism that have long been embedded into higher education.
But then, reality settles in: Suzanne is representative of thousands of Black women. Across North America, all manner of Suzannes continue to be belittled, ignored, attacked.
Akin’s production isn’t easy – the director’s work seldom is – and I wouldn’t call Ohio State Murders a particularly enjoyable hour of theatre. But the play conveys Kennedy’s message the way only live theatre can: up-close and without an escape hatch.