THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

Runs through: Aug. 3

This production is a theatrical Classics Illustrated version of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, the thick 19th Century Russian novel that none of us managed to finish in high school, not even the smart kids. Lengthy, deep, dark and profound, it tells of impoverished law student Raskolnikov executing the perfect crime to prove that some are above the law. In the end Raskolnikov confesses in a guilt-and-angst-riddled melt-down, inspired in part by a young prostitute representing traditional religious philosophy, and in part by a sympathetic police inspector who proves a master of psychological analysis.

Knowing the density of the work, I was surprised to learn this stage version ran only 95 minutes and used just three actors. How could that be? The answer is that adapters Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus cut the work in half, picking up the narrative after the crime has been committed rather than when Raskolnikov hatches it. The back story with the prostitute, Sonia, is barely sketched in; ditto, Raskolnikov's epistolary relationship with his mother. Like Cliff Notes bullet points, what's left is reduced to the highlights of story, action and ideas. The tortured principal characters are there and the major themes, but the flavor of the work—the complexity of its ideas and evocative literary style, the grotty details of grinding poverty—are not. The streets of 1860 St. Petersburg come to life only occasionally, as when Raskolnikov describes his cramped room or witnesses a cart driver beating his horse to death, a descriptive highlight of the novel.

Perhaps there's no other way to adapt this work, short of a four-hour version. What's there certainly is well-presented, as is customary at Writers' Theatre. Pale, thin, blond Scott Parkinson is perfectly cast as Raskolnikov, especially against the height of John Judd in an understated Sidney Greenstreet turn as the inspector, and against the dark-haired intensity of Susan Bennett as Sonia. Director Michael Halberstam, scenic designers Heather Graff and Richard Peterson, and lighting designer Joel Moritz have found surprising little ways to physicalize this work of passionate but celibate talk. Costume designer Rachel Anne Healy provides pattern and muted colors in patched clothes for Raskolnikov and Sonia, and spiffier middle class attire for the inspector.

But the work, nonetheless, reduces to thematic statements: 'I murdered myself, didn't I?' Raskolnikov pronounces, only to be told by Sonia, 'You have to confess to take away the sin. If you won't confess, you can't be forgiven.' Perhaps that's all there is to Crime and Punishment, stage version or novel, and the rest is merely Russian dressing, but I don't think so. The novel is rich with the emotions of cleansing and redemption that are missing in this attenuated treatment.

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