Audra McDonald in Ohio State Murders: Yes, Bring on the Tonys

In a role that looks to garner a 7th Tony Award for Audra McDonald, the actress plays a poet returning to her school to give a lecture about her work. She must explain the source of her grim images. From this start, Ohio State Murders, a tight 75-minute tour de force from 91-year-old playwright Adrienne Kennedy, holds you in its grip. Yes, there is a murder—actually 2-- and the way a poet might narrate such a tale, in fragments, is breathtaking. 

Insanely, this is Kennedy’s Broadway debut—in the newly refurbished, sparkling James Earl Jones Theater. Where has she been, with her erudition, her language, her sharp focus on the plight of smart women, on race? The play is based on Kennedy’s own experiences with racism while attending the mostly white Ohio State University in the ‘50’s. A black woman, no matter how gifted, was never considered eligible to major in literature. So, as depicted in the play, when a young lecturer arrives and reads from Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the part where a stunned Tess confesses to murder, Suzanne Alexander, as she’s called, is smitten. To be fair, we are too. Who has not had a crush on a charismatic prof? This one, Robert Hampshire, very white and wan-- with Bryce Pinkham in the role-- reads with passion. You can guess some of what happens here, in an outlying house near an abyss—but not the key, shocking details.

Kudos to the set designer Beowulf Boritt, for his visual fragments that underscore the unusual telling of this tale, to the violin playing roommate Iris Ann, a lovely Abigail Stephenson in her Broadway debut, and especially to director Kenny Leon who is making a career of historic opening night speeches. Clearly, Broadway is having its own reckoning on race, and the results are thrilling.