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| Christopher Samuel Carroll (Raskolnikov) - PJ Williams (Inspector Porfiry) in The Street Theatre's production of "Crime and Punishment" |
Written by
Fyodor Dostoyevsky – Adapted by Marilyn Campbell-Lowe and Curt Columbus
Directed by
Caroline Stacey – Lighting Design by Darren Hawkins
Set and
Costume Design by Kathleen Kershaw – Sound Design by Kimmo Vennonen
Performance
Coach (Josephine Gazard) Shelley Higgs.
Australian
Premiere season at The Street Theatre, Canberra June 22nd to July 7th
2024.
Performance
on 25th June reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.
Despite the
intimate performance space of the Street’s Theatre Two, Caroline Stacey has
managed an epic production of a work which demands the audience consider
questions it might otherwise choose to dodge
Adapters
Marilyn Campbell-Lowe and Curt Columbus have compressed Dostoyevsky’s novel into
90 minutes of intensely demanding narrative that argues questions around one
person’s right to take the life of another.
The play focusses
on an impoverished law student, Raskolnikov, who having self-justified his
murder of a pawnbroker attempts to outwit a wily police inspector intent on
having him confess to the murder.
Christopher Samuel Carroll, as Raskolnikov, captures exactly the right degree of arrogant insolence with his portrayal of a character who refuses to be bowed by his circumstances, and who, recognising that he has a worthy intellectual adversary in the wily Inspector Porfiry, relishes the cat-and-mouse aspect of their encounters.
Similarly PJ
Williams, as Porfiry, balances gravitas with an occasional hint
amusement while indulging himself in a game in which both are aware can only
have one ending. Both actors offer masterly, finely honed performances to
savour.
Director Stacey has framed those encounters in a dark, brilliantly conceived production which strips away unnecessary detail to focus on Dostoyevsky’s powerful ideas.
These are
presented as a series of verbal pas de deux punctuated by narrative incidents
depicted in abstract episodes in which, surprisngly, Josephine Gazard appeared out of her
depth portraying the female characters.
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| Christopher Samuel Carroll (Raskolnikov) - Josephine Gazard (Sonia) in "Crime and Punishment" |
The deceptively minimalist setting, designed by Kathleen Kershaw, effectively utilises the brick walls of the theatre space. Two separated rows of rostra, in front of which is strewn crunchy gravel, two chairs, a microphone on a stand and very few other items, are all that are needed for Stacey and her brilliant lighting and sound designers, Darren Hawkins, and Kimmo Vennonen to conjure up vivid impressions of Dostoyevsky’s gloomy Russian environment in which danger lurks in dank, foggy alleyways, where idealists and anarchists harangue crowds and shop-owners are murdered without mercy.
The resulting production is not only an impressive piece of theatre-making, and one that will reward audiences seeking mental challenge and stimulation, but also, for the theatrically curious, one which could serve as an enlightening introduction to the writings of Dostoyevsky.
Images by Canberra Streets
This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. www.artsreview.com.au