Crime and Punishment (NHB Modern Plays)

Stage Version

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

• Verlag: Nick Hern Books
• Jahr: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781780017372
• Thema: Literature
• Thema: Drama

An exciting, fresh and accessible adaptation of Dostoyevsky's masterful novel.

Starving, destitute student Raskolnikov is surrounded by the harsh injustices of the world: the grime of poverty and prostitution, unscrupulous pawnbrokers chasing debts, and a sister about to marry someone she doesn't love to keep her family alive. His guilt is unbearable. Only Sonya, a downtrodden prostitute, can offer any chance of redemption.

As Raskolnikov enters a dangerous cat and mouse game with the examining magistrate, a psychological thriller unfolds that probes how far humanity might go when driven by disillusionment and whether any crime can be justified by a higher purpose.

'Both a classic come to life and an urgent new work which develops its own style and language rather than slavishly imitating the text and it's all the better for it.' - Independent

'Powerful... To find a theatrical structure, adaptor Chris Hannan roams freely through the novel. He turns interior monologue into direct address, thins out subplots and reconfigures the sequence of events to fashion a fluid route through the story.' - Guardian

'Magnificent... a fluent, beautiful, profoundly theatrical account of one of the great stories of world literature' - Scotsman

ACT ONE

Scene One

Out of the Depths

The CAST enter singing a Russian Orthodox Psalm. They are dressed as their characters – a drunk, a prostitute, a poor gentlewoman and her daughter, a pawnbroker, et cetera.

Out of the depths we cry and we beg you;
Lord hear our prayer up above!

Almighty God, have pity upon us
Show us the face of your love.

Weary and faint in a land without water
Thirsting for you with our soul.

Through the dark night we hope and we pray like
Sentries that long for the dawn…

Through the dark night we hope and we pray like
Sentries that long for the dawn…

The rest of the CAST exit, leaving RASKOLNIKOV alone on stage.

Scene Two

The Idea

RASKOLNIKOV wears a battered top hat; very English. His slept-in coat is the uniform worn by students in nineteenth-century Russia; it has a military touch.

He talks to the audience.

RASKOLNIKOV. When you first consider the idea of murder, there’s a there’s a hesitation. And and also, as for instance if you want to be a poet, almost you can’t take yourself seriously, which makes you angry of course.

Always there’s this voice mocking you. ‘You students!’ it says. ‘You talk, you want to abolish the law, you want to abolish everything; the longer you talk the less I believe you. Murder? You’re too mediocre to murder.’ And to show the voice you’re serious, you count the steps from the door of your tenement garret to the door of the pawnbroker’s. You decide to use an axe.

For a month you are nailed to your bed like you’re sick. You see nobody, eat nothing, sleep without taking your clothes off, argue with the voice. After a while the voice be be begins to say, ‘I’m bored of this, you’re a time-waster; if you’re going to commit murder, get on with it.’

That’s when I decide to go to the pawnbroker’s, as a rehearsal. I want to consider the obstacles. And the first ob the first obstacle to surmount is going outside. There’s nothing funny about it. The landlady is a long story but in brief, I owe her a certain amount of money an unknown amount of money and she lives in the flat below. I’m obliged to creep down the tenement stairs, and that makes me almost physically sick – the idea that I can contemplate murder but am afraid of the landlady.

Scene Three

The Rehearsal

ALYONA IVANOVNA the pawnbroker’s house.

RASKOLNIKOV rings the bell. He has a feeling inside like he might throw up. ALYONA IVANOVNA answers the door. She is the middle-class widow of a civil servant; very observant, excellent memory.

RASKOLNIKOV. It’s Raskolnikov, law student former student. Was here a month month or so ago.

ALYONA. Yes.

RASKOLNIKOV. I’ve come for the same thing again. Pawn,
et cetera.

ALYONA. Come in.

RASKOLNIKOV goes in. The sun in the room hurts his eyes.

RASKOLNIKOV. Bright. Sun setting. You must run see the river.

ALYONA. I never look. What have you brought me?

RASKOLNIKOV takes a watch out of his pocket.

RASKOLNIKOV. This watch.

She takes it and appraises it. By that I don’t mean she casts her eye over it – she has a professional tool; an eyeglass or jeweller’s loupe. She wants to know who made the watch, where, and she’s looking for markings that will tell her that. Like any pawnbroker, her evaluations are based on a detailed knowledge of the market, margins, etc.

It’s engraved on the back, look. A globe.

ALYONA. The last pledge you brought me. Your month’s up. The second of June you pledged it, today’s the fourth of July.

RASKOLNIKOV. I’ll pay another month’s interest.

ALYONA. Now?

RASKOLNIKOV. A day or two. Have some patience, Alyona Ivanovna.

ALYONA. Whether I’m patient or not is my business, law student. I gave you a month and the month’s up. It’s mine n...