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Dixie Sheridan ©2025  Bill Connington as Quentin P.

“Zombie,” written and performed by Bill Connington (adapted from a Joyce Carole Oates novella), could have been a psychologically astute, insightful portrait of the mind of a serial killer. Instead, what we get in a little over an hour is a litany of victims and how they met their grotesque ends, a bit like a CSI episode, only from the killer’s viewpoint. One of the challenges here is the salacious material itself: serial killers have inspired both fascination and dread, as well as miles of newsprint, books, television series, and experts who have made careers out of studying them. In fact, I have a friend who collects serial killer playing cards, much the same way a youth collects baseball cards. So because the general public already knows much, something new must be brought to the table, or something must be illuminated that previously was in darkness. “Zombie,” judged by these criteria, fails, and fails big.

Dixie Sheridan ©2025  Bill Connington as Quentin P.

Quentin P. (Connington) lives in his grandmother’s basement. He is middle-aged and ordinary-looking and describes himself as “the caretaker” of the home, as he is the only one who lives there. His background is a sketch, of sorts: picked on at school, skinny and bespectacled, fantasies about a male school friend he was in love with, his burgeoning homosexuality quashed by his intolerant father. That’s about it, and it is not sufficient to explain even a little about why Quentin would become the monster he becomes. There are plenty of men who have similar backgrounds, and moved to San Francisco or New York and led perfectly happy, openly gay lives. What distinguishes this man, why is he different“ The play never ventures into why. Instead, it takes the easy road, and concentrates on describing, in minute detail, Quentin’s fascination with trying to perfect a frontal lobotomy, so he can make a “zombie” that will fulfill his every need and sexual desire. Quentin describes the lobotomies, killings and rape of his many victims, so the initial gratuitousness gives way to something worse, which is boredom. One should feel unsettled, but I ceased caring about the people Quentin killed, as, like anyone who is subjected to relentless, violent images, one eventually becomes anesthetized to them.

Connington himself is a fine actor, and his portrayal is right on the money here: robotic when explaining his recollections, controlled when stalking his prey, and in a rage when his quarry “misbehaves.” The problem is the play itself. It is not that “Zombie” should supply easy answers as to why or how a serial killer is made, but some insight to Quentin P.’s character would have provided a depth that the writing, as it stands, simply does not have. It’s not nice to leave the theatre feeling, well… like a zombie.