Submitted by Daniel Blue, Nov 9, 2007 22:22

I just returned from a performance of "The Ohio State Murders," and I strongly disagree with this review. Granted, the play is a bit wordy and perhaps too dependent on resonance, as opposed to action, to bowl one over or leave one feeling thrilled. (One might say the same about Chekhov.) Other pleasures, however, are amply on display. We can start with the director's tactful and tactical use of sound effects -- the songs and film scores played so distantly as to be almost inaudible, and, by contrast, the violently disruptive blasts which register unhingement during the professor's final speech. Then there are the images -- the set itself, of course, but the projections of falling snow, the clips from "Battleship Potemkin," the words the young Suzanne studies after the death of her child. These not only punctuate the drama but induce a dreamlike presence essential to its effect. We can also admire Yionoulis's blocking, the way she unobtrusively directs the audience's gaze from the main speaker to the character on display and back again. As for the actors, I found none of them awkward (a rare experience on the current stage), and the two leads in particular (the older and younger Suzanne) had such presence that I seemed to drink in their being, even though on the surface neither had much to do at all. The role of the younger Suzanne must have been particularly difficult since her role is largely passive -- she can't even speak but must silently react -- yet I found her riveting from her first entrance to her final disappearance behind the scenery. I found Lisa Gay Hamilton a bit insecure in her opening lines but, after the first five minutes, her ability to meld speech, facial expression and, occasionally, body language left me feeling I was in the hands of a master performer. While this was scarcely my greatest evening in the theater, it was a thorougly satisfying one, and I am disappointed that the Sun reviewer was so in search of something else that she missed what was there.

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