Given the
right circumstances, and depending on your perspective of morality,
even the most brutal, coldblooded murders can be justified. Whether the
murders come about as the result of a pre-emptive military invasion or
crude blows from a heavy blade, the laws that govern the rest of
society, they say, do not apply to “extraordinary people.”
This
type of morality was explored in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 1866 novel Crime
and Punishment. Dostoevsky’s masterwork about an ax murderer named
Raskolnikov was most recently adapted for the stage by Marilyn Campbell
and Curt Columbus, debuting in Chicago a few years back. On Feb. 14,
director Patrick Holland brings this adaptation to the Broadway Theatre
Center’s Studio Theatre with Milwaukee Chamber Theatre.
Holland
was introduced to the latest version of Crime and Punishment through
Josh Schmidt, the sound designer for the original Chicago production.
Holland first approached Cotter Smith of the Cornerstone Theatre
Company with the idea of producing the Campbell/Columbus adaptation.
Ultimately unable to stage the play with Cornerstone, the script
eventually found a home with Milwaukee Chamber.
The adaptation
has been praised in previous productions for editing down one of the
most complex novels of the 20th century into a play that requires only
three actors to perform the entire story in 90 minutes, without an
intermission. Instead of focusing too specifically on cultural aspects
of 19th-century Russia, Holland says the Milwaukee Chamber
production plays up the universality of the story’s broader themes. We
see the story from inside Raskolnikov’s mind. Holland compares the
feeling onstage to TV’s “Law & Order” and the acclaimed Christopher
Nolan film Memento, as mid-19thcentury Russia blurs into the human
psyche.
Schmidt, who introduced the play to Holland, etches
dark tones into the ambiance. Somewhere in the midst of it all is the
distinct sound of a balalaika. In the Milwaukee Chamber production, Mic
Matarrese plays Raskolnikov, a writer being questioned about two
murdered women.
Milwaukee stage veteran Drew Brhel plays his
interrogator, a police inspector named Porfiry. The talented Leah
Dutchin, most recently seen in Next Act’s production of Paradise, plays
several female roles.In the past, the adaptation has been criticized
for not giving the actress much to do beyond reacting to the men, but
Holland says this version of the script is much more balanced. The
production does, in fact, show the murders. And being the only female
in the cast, it’s inevitable that Dutchin will be playing the victims
in flashback scenes. Holland describes the murders staged here as
“snapshots” that are “very stylized.”
“When the ax comes out,
it’s kind of a shock,” Holland says. Jokingly, he adds that Crime and
Punishment, which opens on Valentine’s Day, should make for “a good
date play.”
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