Guest Reviewer: Joe Kempkes on Berkeley Rep Crime and Punishment

Reading Fyodor Dostoevsky's classic novel "Crime and Punishment" is like spending eight years in a Siberian work camp. I finished the Russian morality tale the morning I sent to see Berkeley Repertory's stage production of the same title. What I found there was a similar story of human degradation, humiliation and angst. But, unlike the seemingly endless novel, the stage adaptation by Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus was distilled into a taut ninety minutes. Rather than it being a glorified theatrical Cliffs Notes, it conveys the author's pursuit of large metaphysical questions without the harsh aftertaste. This adaptation carefully crafted the novel's dramatic events into a revelation of the author's expansive and luminous mind. The result, brought together by three superb actors, is vivid, swift and amazingly effecting.
The play focuses on the murder aspect of the story and centers it around Raskolnikov (Tyler Pierce) and Porfiry (J. R. Horne). Researching the novel Marilyn Campbell had this to say: "I soon realized you couldn't tell the story without Sonia (Delia MacDougall) - it really needed that female voice of redemption in there - so I insisted that she be added as a character and set out again to adapt the novel." Co-adapter Curt Columbus (who understands the Russian language) had this to say: "Marilyn had done the original heavy lifting of the adaptation. I went back and retranslated certain passages because I didn't feel the translation she was working from was quite vivid enough."
Columbus' retranslations skillfully provide the added lift and verve to this morbid murder mystery brought to life by that giant of world literature.
"Crime and Punishment" plays through March 29 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addiston Street. Phone (510) 647 2949 or visit berkeleyrep.org