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by Adrienne Kennedy, directed by Philip Akin

Shaw Festival, Studio Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake

August 14–October 3, 2026

Suzanne: “I was asked to talk about the violent imagery in my work”

Ohio State Murders is without doubt the most powerful serious play currently running at the Shaw Festival. Lack of clear direction turns Shaw’s great Heartbreak House into muddle and Amadeus, a middle-brow play about mediocrity 47 years after its premiere, seems mediocre itself. Ohio State Murders (1991), however, by revered Black American poet and playwright Adrienne Kennedy, now aged 94, presents an extraordinary critique of racism and its destructiveness. Under Philip Akin’s insightful direction, Sophia Walker gives a truly outstanding performance as the central character.

The 50-minute-long play centres on the character of Suzanne Alexander (a semi-autobiographical version of Kennedy), who attended Ohio State University from 1949-50 and has now become a famous author. As Suzanne says, “I was asked to talk about the violent imagery in my work: bloodied heads, severed limbs, dead father, dead Nazis, dying Jesus. The chairman said, we do want to hear about your brief years here at Ohio State, but we also want you to talk about the violent imagery in your stories and plays”.

This seems like a straightforward enough request, but, as Suzanne’s lecture demonstrates in a strangely calm, offhand manner that her imagery is a direct reaction to her “brief years” at Ohio State. Suzanne gives what at first seems an oddly detailed description of the Ohio State campus and notes “the lawn behind the dorm where the white girls sunned” and the street in town where, because of the hostile atmosphere of White people, Negroes did not walk. Alexander’s description shows that racism was basically part of the geography of the campus and Columbus, Ohio, where it is located. She points out that there was a ravine on one side of the campus when she arrived where “A year and a half later, one of my baby twin daughters would be found dead there. That was later”.

This horrific allusion, so casually mentioned, is an example of how the entire play is constructed. Suzanne’s dispassionate delivery establishes an jarring distance between what she describes and how she describes it that generates increasing tension in us, the audience, as she continues.

Suzanne had not declared a major but favourite subject is English and her favourite professor is Robert Hampshire. Of all the novels they read, her favourite is Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) by Thomas Hardy. The subtitle for the novel is “A Pure Woman” which emphasizes that Hardy sees Tess, as an example of a woman who wants a better life but is thwarted by the social conventions of the day. She is from the lower class, she has a child out of wedlock and she kills her male attacker.

The character of Tess resonates with Suzanne as does Robert’s view of Tess as a victim of the patriarchal structures built into society and religion which views certain people as outcasts from birth. In describing her time at Ohio State, Suzanne encounters these very structures. When Suzanne writes a term paper on Tess, Robert assumes she, as a Black woman, must have plagiarized it because it is so good. When Suzanne decides to become an English major, she learns that Negroes need special permission to take advanced English courses. When Suzanne has twins out of wedlock, she has to leave university.

In a tremendous performance, Sophia Walker delivers Suzanne’s lecture in an eerily collected tone as if the past were simply the past. Yet, when speaking of the kidnapping and presumed death of one of her twins, Walker allows just enough emotion in to prove to us that these memories of the past are still strong. By the end we see there is a reason why Suzanne simply gives a description of her time at Ohio State to explain the prevalence of violent imagery in her work.

Kennedy treats Robert, who had both a positive and negative impact on Suzanne’s life, as a minor character. Kennedy allows Robert only to read from literary texts and to lecture on them. He speaks only a few dozen words to Suzanne. Kennedy’s deliberate cutting down of the character leaves André Morin little to do except to prove what an empathetic reader of texts he was and how fine a lecturer he must have been. In an important moment Morin, reading a text about love, directly gazes at Suzanne and we are left to assume his underlying desire.

There are other voices in the play. Some productions have presented these voices as physical characters on stage. Director Philip Akin wisely has decided to represent these characters as pre-recorded voices to maintain a focus on Suzanne and her memories.

The play is presented in and around a sculptural wooden structure that looks like an elaborate piece of Danish Modern furniture. It looks like a single ribbon of rosewood that rises from floor height to chair height to lectern height and back circling the perimeter of the stage. Along this length of wooden ribbon are evenly spaced backs of editions of Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Designer Melanie McNeill has thus presented us with a sculpture that represents both Suzanne’s life and her lecture where its end is its beginning.

Ohio State Murders is a profoundly, subtle work which should be as widely seen as possible. However, on the day I attended the house was only half full. That’s a terrible shame, but it’s no surprise. The Festival is charging full price ($112.73–$182.73) for tickets to a two-person play that is only 50 minutes long. This coming season for $110.00 you can buy a non-discounted front row seat to a three-hour-long opera at the COC with full orchestra and chorus. If the Festival really wants to encourage people to see the Ohio State Murders, as it ought to, it should reconsider what it charges for so short and minimalist a play.

Christopher Hoile

Photo: Sophia Walker as Suzanne; Sophia Walker as Suzanne; André Morin ad Robert and Sophia Walker as Suzanne. © 2026 Michael Cooper.

For tickets visit www.shawfest.com