By Stephen Dubois

In another lifetime, while I was a high school and then college student, I worked in a record store. One afternoon, a customer walked in holding a compact disc and a receipt and asked for a refund. I asked if it was defective, and he gave me a rather unexpected answer.

“No,” he said. “It’s too short!”

I asked him to explain, as I was genuinely confused. He continued: “CDs can hold more than 75 minutes of music, and this one is only 38 minutes. I want my money back because it’s a rip-off. It’s not full length.”

I explained that the length of an album represents the artist’s creative output for that particular work. I pointed out that, for the same price, someone can go to the cinema and see an 88-minute comedy or four hours of Gone with the Wind. Would you ask for a refund because a movie was too short? Or because a novel was just 180 pages, as opposed to something by Victor Hugo? I guess I had made my point, because he walked away without pushing the issue further.

That interaction came to mind as I watched Ohio State Murders at the Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre at the Shaw Festival. Clocking in at a mere 52 minutes, was this play “too short,” like that gentleman’s CD, or was it exactly as long as it needed to be to make its dramatic point?

It was certainly the latter.

Adrienne Kennedy’s play begins with a prominent and established African American author, Suzanne Alexander, returning decades later to Ohio State University, where she was once a student in the early 1950s, to deliver a lecture about her own work and explain why it is filled with themes of violence. The setting is particularly significant because Ohio State was Kennedy’s own university, and she has said that aspects of her college experience shaped the work.

What begins as a lecture soon takes several turns into Suzanne’s past and the racism she encountered on campus. At the time, Suzanne was unable to pursue English as a major, despite her obvious talent as a writer. Her white English professor, Robert Hampshire, recognizes her ability and genuinely wishes circumstances were different, since English would have been a natural path for the budding author.

The revelations unfold gradually, with new information emerging as Suzanne revisits her past. I don’t want to give away the tragedy at the heart of the piece, but, as one might imagine from the title, this is not a story headed toward a happy ending.

At its core, the play explores how our lives are shaped by our experiences and how we find ways to cope with them. Anyone who has experienced racism, judgment, or simply been unfairly valued—or devalued—because of skin color or gender can understand the need to find some means of processing those experiences. For Suzanne, that processing takes place through her writing.

In the end, the action snaps back to the lecture. The lights return to full brightness, and Suzanne simply states, “And this is why my work is filled with themes of violence.”

While André Morin has a respectable amount of stage time, the play is primarily a tour-de-force monologue for Sophia Walker. Both actors are excellent in their roles, and director Philip Akin has clearly brought the best out of the duo.

The set design is simple, as one would expect in this open studio space: a serpentine arrangement of wooden curves that simultaneously evokes a university library and campus furnishings. The rounded edges have a distinctly mid-century-modern feel. In one corner, the highest elevation of the structure serves as a lectern for the professor. The spines of books create a pattern across its surface, while pages hang beneath it. Subtle lighting from above provides mood and atmosphere, while the equally discreet sound design supplies incidental music and songs that complement the storytelling.

The 52 minutes move very quickly. In fact, I would have liked to see the ending unfold a little more gradually—perhaps with a very slow fade up. I suspect many audience members could not believe it was over, and not simply because of the play’s short running time. The ending itself arrives with a certain abruptness that may leave some wondering if they have missed something.

But the work says what it needs to say in those 52 minutes. The story is what it is, and we come away with a deeper understanding of how the events of Suzanne’s past shaped both her life and her career.

Having established its worth and appropriate length, one question remains: should the Shaw Festival have paired this piece with another one-act play to provide a more substantial theatrical experience for its audience?

I feel the answer is yes, particularly when I think about people traveling from Toronto, Ottawa, or even farther to see a Shaw production. What if this is the only show they see? Fifty-two minutes in the theatre, after a couple of hours of driving, parking, walking, and dining, seems like a big ask. Even the relatively short trek from Buffalo resulted in considerably more time traveling to and from Niagara-on-the-Lake than actually sitting in the theatre watching a play.

Adrienne Kennedy herself has written many short plays that could have been neatly paired with Ohio State Murders, such as The Owl Answers or Funnyhouse of a Negro, which, according to the Playbill, won an Obie Award. Or perhaps another poignant study of racism in America by a different playwright, such as Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman.

But all this conjecture seems somewhat moot since the Shaw Festival has already announced its 2027 season and will be presenting two one-acts together, this time The Rats and The Patient, both by Agatha Christie. Perhaps others have communicated similar concerns about the experience of attending a standalone one-act as the sole theatrical offering, and the Festival has listened.

Ohio State Murders is succinct and purposeful as a work of theatrical art and doesn’t need another 40 minutes to justify its legitimacy. It just needs a companion to provide a more substantial evening for its patrons.

The play closes October 3 and there is no bad seat in the house at the Jackie Maxwell Theatre.

Tickets available: Ohio State Murders – Shaw Festival Theatre