Theatre in Review: Crime and Punishment (Phoenix Theatre Ensemble/ART New York Theatres)

	Elise Stone, Josh Tyson. Photo: Jonathan Slaff

On the face of it, the idea of boiling down Fyodor Dostoevsky's sprawling novel to ninety minutes and three actors seems like the most Sisyphean of endeavors. Then again, the maximalist approach hasn't been successful. At least two Broadway adaptations came and went decades ago without anyone paying much attention; a 1947 Crime and Punishment, with John Gielgud, Lillian Gish, Sanford Meisner, and Marian Seldes plus a company of thirty-nine, lasted only forty performances. Perhaps brevity is the way to go: Curt Columbus and Marilyn Campbell Lowe's trim approach has an unerring sense of where drama lurks; everything else is cast aside, resulting in a tab edition that begins arrestingly and builds steadily to a remarkably powerful climax.

So often when novels are transposed to the stage, the results are either lumberingly long or designed to smugly pass judgment on earlier eras. Columbus and Lowe commit neither error, drastically reducing the book's crowded gallery of characters and focusing with scorching intensity on the protagonist Raskolnikov and the terrible aftermath of the double murder he commits for what he claims are philosophical reasons. Altogether missing is the subplot about Dunya, Raskolnikov's sister, and her suitors; also gone are Raskolnikov's friend Razumikhin and several other featured characters. The action begins in media res, with Raskolnikov being questioned by Porfiry, the examining magistrate, about the killings.

In this telling, Crime and Punishment becomes a manhunt on two levels. Porfiry knows Raskolnikov is guilty and coolly traps him into facing his guilt, using the young man's writings as a snare. At the same time, Sonia, the pious streetwalker who labors on behalf of her ailing mother and siblings, fascinates Raskolnikov to the point of obsession; she is, unwittingly, coming for his soul. One pursuer has the law on his side, the other has the implacable power of faith; against them, he is defenseless.

Karen Case Cook's production is solidly founded on a trio of fine performances. Josh Tyson's Raskolnikov, his nerves already rattled by the ugly facts of murder, talks a good game at first, arguing that "all great leaders of men are, in fact, criminals," buttressing the point by adding "bloodshed gives them strength." (His exhibit A is Napoleon, as it would be in 19th-century Europe.) Underneath, however, he is degenerating quickly under the dawning realization that his homicidal impulses are rooted in jealousy and rage, not some proto-Nietzschean philosophy. Indeed, poverty and career failure have driven him to a psychological brink; in reaching for a gesture of greatness, he only exposes the destitution of his soul. Tyson goes about his work carefully, sparring intently with his co-stars and revealing his character's self-loathing by degrees, culminating in a terrible moment of self-recognition.

As the program notes, the eccentric Porfiry, hardly a model of a by-the-book investigator, toys with Raskolnikov in a manner that will remind many of a czarist Peter Falk in full trench-coat mode. John Lenartz lends the character a transparent innocence designed to fool nobody, his raspy voice rising ever so slightly as if to insist on Raskolnikov's innocence, then returning, his brow furrowed, to clear up just one more niggling point. He visibly eats away at Raskolnikov's composure, citing an essay that amounts to a homicidal manifesto, and then, taking direct aim, describing the killings as "the modern face of crime." Twisting the screws, he adds, "Here, we have bookish dreams. A heart unhinged by theories." It's an approach designed to strike terror into the heart of any modestly guilty malefactor. Lenartz also appears in other roles, most effectively as Sonia's drunken father, whose death brings her into Raskolnikov's orbit.

Sonia is probably the trickiest role for modern audiences, embodying as she does the nineteenth-century cliché of the gold-hearted prostitute. But Elise Stone gives her an underlying strength, a hardness at her core, that relieves her of sentimentality and goes a long way toward explaining Raskolnikov's fascination with her. His sterile theories about übermenschen making their own moral laws look pathetic when faced with a woman who willingly gives herself up to abasement and abuse to feed her starving family, retaining her belief amid such awful circumstances. Her shocked, yet sympathetic, reaction to Raskolnikov's admission of guilt proves to be his undoing. Stone, the rare actress who can suggest spiritual depth without straining to do so, is in fine form here; she also doubles as the evil, crackling pawnbroker who is Raskolnikov's chief victim and as his mother, a rather more complicated woman in the novel, here reduced to a simple icon of maternal love.

Of course, many nuances will be sacrificed in dramatizing a novel of this complexity. What's missing is its sense of St. Petersburg's teeming life, its appalling poverty and jostling crowds. But the script retains, and illuminates, Dostoevsky's themes to a remarkable degree. And Cook's staging moves with implacable logic, driving Raskolnikov to his ultimate reckoning. Staged with the audience on two sides and utilizing only three benches for furniture, the action is carefully shaped by Tony Mulanix's lighting, which contrasts cool and warm tones (the latter with a touch of color) to create starkly different emotional states. Debbi Hobson's costumes are designed to allow fast changes for Lenartz and Stone, although, given how often Raskolnikov complains about the rags he is forced to wear, a little distressing of his tailcoat might be a good idea. Ellen Mandel's sound design includes some unnerving effects, such as a ticking clock and a frantic knocking at the door. Phoenix Theatre Ensemble, a fine company that, a few years ago, relocated to Nyack, only comes to town now and then; this production, which closes this week, is a too-brief reminder of what we've been missing since the move. --David Barbour