Theatre / Reviews
Review: Crime and Punishment, Tobacco Factory Theatres – ‘Impressively ambitious and psychologically taut’
To encounter Fyodor Dostoevsky as merely a reader is a daunting and transformative experience. To approach this giant with a view to adapt his work for the stage presumably excites a nameless and profound fear.
Whilst I am in the exceptionally good company of Dostoevsky himself in regarding The Brothers Karamazov as his masterpiece, it is a simple matter of record that his 1866 excavation of Rodion Raskolnikov’s broken psyche is considered perhaps the greatest novel ever written.
Chris Hannan’s taut adaptation gives this young company of actors a fighting chance at this difficult task. I say ‘difficult’ because, in the truest and most basal sense, Crime and Punishment takes place entirely inside the faltering and diminished mind of a new murderer. Its rich plot is as nothing compared with the story between Raskolnikov’s ears, and it is from this tormented vantage that the novel’s great insights and agonies emanate.
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It will not surprise you, then, to learn that as Raskolnikov, Charlie Hammond is seldom offstage. Hammond carries the protagonist’s disintegration and moral corrosion with astounding skill. Dostoevsky’s characters are often emblems of psychological and spiritual frameworks; Hammond manages expertly to portray both the man and the ideology that guarantees his collapse.
Hannan’s adaptation frames the narrative as fundamentally a cat-and-mouse chase between Raskolnikov and the Magistrate, Porfiry (Lukas Gregory). Gregory’s is a disquieting and semi-surreal performance, inhabiting with a nightmarish poise the daunting Porfiry as he torments Raskolnikov.
The staging deserves particular mention. Ryan Webster makes smart use of the industrial aesthetic of the space, effortlessly presenting the austere world of 19th century St. Petersburg. Ghostly apparitions appear in chorus from behind translucent screens, abetting the haunting of Raskolnikov.
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Crime and Punishment seems both to critique and to commit misogyny. The women in the novel are defined by their relationship to male violence or desire. Sonya (Polly June Irwin) is a male representation of female virtue; the pure-hearted prostitute whose narrative function is to receive Raskolnikov’s guilt and assist in his redemption. Irwin is excellent in portraying the faint glimmer of hope which gives the production its heart.
As Dunya, Heidi Cappleman-Barrio’s is a commanding and impressive presence. Initially a figure of subservience and pity, she ultimately stands up against the coercion and abuse to which she is subjected.
If there are rough edges, and in a student piece of this scope there are bound to be, they are outweighed by the overall strength of the production.
Director Cameron Thorne has successfully staged a novel famously difficult to externalise, allowing us inside the narrow world of this enduring psychological masterpiece.
Crime and Punishment is at Tobacco Factory Theatres on June 4-6 at 7.30pm, with an additional 2.30pm matinee show on Saturday. Tickets are available at tobaccofactorytheatres.com.
Main photo: Bristol School of Acting
Read next:
- Review: Twelfth Night, Tobacco Factory Theatres – ‘Another triumph from the most exciting acting school in Bristol’
- Review: A Fairy Story (Animal Farm), Tobacco Factory Theatres – ‘Exceptional acting lights up this techno remix of the Orwellian fable’
- Review: double bill: Britz/Codetta – ‘Bristol School of Acting is continually producing superb shows’
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