Theatre / Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, adapted by Marilyn Campbell-Lowe and Curt Columbus, directed by Caroline Stacey. At The Street Theatre until July 7. Reviewed by JOE WOODWARD

How many times have we, as individuals and as people in power, entertained the thought of killing an essentially evil person who causes pain and suffering on others? 

How much better would the world be if such people were simply removed from existence? This question is faced by Dostoyevsky’s central character in Crime and Punishment. 

However, when enacted, the blow-back on the psyche is devastating. The Street Theatre’s production of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment compels us to re-examine the urge to destroy, even for an apparent higher purpose.

Caroline Stacey’s direction sees the text given physical form through a highly concentrated, yet deceptively minimal, set design by Kathleen Kershaw, brilliant lighting by Darren Hawkins and a highly emotive sound design by Kimmo Vennonen while extrapolating deeply psychological performances from Christopher Samuel Carroll, PJ Williams and Josephine Garard. 

Every aspect of the production fed and linked each other element to create an unusually cohesive work. The actors never left the performance arena as they remained lurking in the dark edges when not in the focus of the action. Emerging from the darkness into the mind of the central character of Raskolnikov, they formed part of a ritualised enhancement of the guilt eating away at Raskolnikov’s mind. 

There were no extraneous distractions from the central focus of the work. This giant novel by Dostoyevsky was cleverly adapted by Marilyn Campbell-Low and Curt Columbus and managed to scale down to about 90 minutes. 

Carroll’s physical embodiment of Raskolnikov’s mind-set is at once disturbing yet capable of releasing the hidden recesses of the soul. Linking realistic spoken text with highly evocative physical body sculpting and gestural expression gave force to what the late iconic theatre director, Peter Brook, termed “the invisible made visible”. 

PJ Williams, as the Inspector, skilfully and calmly created the platform for Carroll to question and reinforce the character’s personal torment and agony. 

This symbiotic playing on stage was riveting. Josephine Gazard’s Sonia, along with her multiple roles, enhanced the work with almost ghost-like apparitions that both taunted and fed the mind of the protagonist with hope and reassurance at some points and damming challenges at other moments. Her variations in vocal delivery delineated the impact of her appearances almost like an echoed chorus.

The Street Theatre’s production of Crime and Punishment has some qualities that potentially can give audiences a refreshed respect and admiration for what theatre can achieve. 

Its use of design and performance to enact a kind of ritual while using elements of ancient ceremonial devices stamps the work as a major artistic event. 

The odd studio space at the Street Theatre has seen a number of such significant works over the years with Crime and Punishment being up there with the best of them. 

Audiences might find some of the vocal pausing and general pacing towards the later stages of the production to be a little awkward. I suggest, this being a new production, there might well be some further refining of the give-and-take that theatre demands. 

However, this should not detract from the very high level of presentation offered by The Street Theatre. The content and its physical form presented in this small space is worthy of our critical and emotional attention in our contemporary world facing significant ethical dilemmas.