Review: ’The Vandal’ is suspenseful, funny drama  Updated at:
01/31/2013 9:37 PM  (AP) NEW YORK - Sometimes on a cold, foggy
night, waiting for a bus outdoors, things just seem spookier
than normal.  This scenario plays out naturally in "The Vandal,"
a suspenseful new play by Hamish Linklater. The Flea Theater is
world premiering Linklater’s broody drama about grief and
survival, which melds surprising, often morbid humor with plot
twists that connect the characters in unexpected ways.
Linklater is better known as a stage and TV actor, particularly
for "Seminar" on Broadway last year. Here, he’s written a tight,
suspenseful drama with ordinary-sounding dialogue that creates
empathy for his three characters while building tension.  A
chatty teenage boy (played with amiable snarkiness by Noah
Robbins) tries to ingratiate himself with an older woman sitting
at a bus stop, in hopes she’ll buy him some beer. Deirdre
O’Connell is perfectly cast as the unnamed, world-weary, middle-
aged widow. O’Connell, a 2010 Obi