When writer Suzanne Alexander (Audra McDonald) returns to her alma mater as a guest speaker, in which she explores the violence in her works, a dark mystery unravels. Adrienne Kennedy's Ohio State Murders is an intriguing and unusual suspense play, as well as a social pertinent look at the destructiveness of racism in our society.
Kennedy, it seems, aims to forbid us the ease and release of a traditional scene, just as she has prescribed a conceptual set that in Beowulf Boritt’s rather stiff interpretation represents all locations and furniture as a tumble of library shelves full of law tomes. But McDonald is incapable of nonemotion; her performance builds to a shattering catharsis that may in some ways be unauthorized. Leon, too, works smartly against the grain of the play. In thoughtfully mimed vignettes, he shows us that the other characters, beautifully enacted if with little to say, are not just puppets of Suzanne’s memory but living creatures with their own struggles. They are lit (by Allen Lee Hughes) and costumed (by Dede Ayite) less forbiddingly than the script might lead you to expect, and accompanied by sound and music (by Justin Ellington and Dwight Andrews) that admits other emotions to the horror. Even the babies are touchingly represented: slips of pink fabric, delicate as scarves and as easily lost.
I spent a restless, almost sleepless night after seeing the play, haunted by its peculiar, unsettling power. Encountering a great work of art can be as disorienting as it is rewarding. “Ohio State Murders” leaves a lasting imprint—I picture a bloody handprint—on what for lack of a better term I’ll call the soul.
| 2007 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| 2022 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
| Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Lead Performance in a Play | Audra McDonald |
| 2023 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Lighting Design of a Play | Allen Lee Hughes |
| 2023 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play | Ohio State Murders |
| 2023 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Scenic Design of a Play | Beowulf Boritt |
| 2023 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Sound Design of a Play | Justin Ellington |
| 2023 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play | Ohio State Murders |
| 2023 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Lead Performer in a Broadway Play | Audra McDonald |
| 2023 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play | Ohio State Murders |
| 2023 | Tony Awards | Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Play | Audra McDonald |
Videos