We Review: Crime & Punishment @ CHAC
First of all, we haven't read the book. We've read other Dostoevsky novels, but not this one. On the other hand, we're not stuck in that dreadful Harry Potter situation where we're gonna tell you all the stuff they left out. What they left in is the poverty, fear, gory ax, greed, and other good stuff that makes for theater you leave talking about.
That Theater Under Ground's Crime and Punishment is a different take than you'd get at, say, the Rep, is evident as soon as you enter the downstairs space and find you can choose to sit either side of a bare rectangular floor and sip your vodka from the bar. You're peering through rough cloth curtains that slide open and closed, and with them open you can see the audience facing you, see them wince or their eyes widen or speculate whether that one apple-cheeked girl looks like a barely-legal amateur site's model of the day. Which is topical, if you read on.
For 90 minutes, no intermission -- Sheila Daniels' resolute pacing doesn't let anyone linger too long on a single moment -- you watch as the stone-broke student Raskolnikov tries to extricate himself from a decision-tree that led to his murder of a bitter old woman pawnbroker and an unintended victim. Galen Joseph Osier is superb as Raskolnikov, coated in a desperate sweat, over-enunciating his responses to the inquisitive detective Porfiry (Mark Fullerton, who adds a paternal, priestly touch to his character's professional curiosity), and terrified and disoriented by flashbacks to the crime.
The flashbacks occur without warning, jostling an interrogation scene aside -- the cloth curtains slide and the gold-hearted, teen-aged whore Sonia (Hana Lass) appears, or her drunken father (also Fullerton, staggering like an intoxicated mantis), or the pawnbroker (Lass again), or her sweet, simple sister (Lass three times). Lass, who's hard-pressed to play convincingly aged women, needs to join the emotional cost of Sonia's barely-legal status to her hope for escape. She won't have pictures floating around the internet, but she will have johns recognizing her in the street.
Maybe this was just us, but we were less interested in Raskolnikov's shot at moral redemption than we were intrigued by watching someone driven crazy by a way of thinking (the Way of the Nihilist Supermen -- "Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos") and struggling to regain a place in society, and not be cast out. So, yes, the bit about Napoleon-fever is dated but the sickly, narcissistic appeal of extraordinary people being above the rabble's law is not.
The play closes this weekend; last Saturday it was sold out, so you may want to get your tickets early: $20 advance/ $25 at the door / $15 student. Fri-Sun. Doors 7pm, curtain 7:30pm.
Photos: Hana Lass as Sonia and Galen Joseph Osier as Raskolnikov; Mark Fullerton as Porfiry. Both by Ruth Haney.
