Crime and Punishment (NHB Modern Plays) E-Book

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 120

Beschreibung

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

Leseprobe

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

CRIME ANDPUNISHMENT

adapted for the stage by

Chris Hannan

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Original Production

'Siberia and Back' by Chris Hannan

Characters

Crime and Punishment

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Crime and Punishment was first performed at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, on 5 September 2013 in a co-production by Citizens Theatre, Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse and Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh. The cast was as follows:

RASKOLNIKOV

Adam Best

NASTASYA

Mabel Clements

PORFIRY PETROVICH/MARMELADOV

George Costigan

DUNYA

Amiera Darwish

SKABICHEVSKY/LEBEZYATNIKOV

Chris Donald

ALYONA/PULKHERIA/KATERINA/DARYA

Cate Hamer

SONYA

Jessica Hardwick

ILYA PETROVICH

John Paul Hurley

LUZHIN

Jack Lord

RAZUMIKHIN

Obioma Ugoala

All other parts played by members of the Company

Director

Dominic Hill

Designer

Colin Richmond

Lighting Designer

Chris Davey

Composer and Sound Designer

Nikola Kodjabashia

Movement Directors

Lucien MacDougall

Benedicte Seierup

Assistant Director

Danielle McIlven

Design Assistant

Ruth Hall

Casting Director

Kay Magson

The production subsequently toured to the Liverpool Playhouse (1-19 October 2013) and the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh (22 October - 9 November 2013).

Siberia and Back

Few writers had a more dramatic life than Dostoyevsky. As a young man he was involved in a secret revolutionary group, imprisoned, taken out to face a firing squad, then pardoned at the last moment and sent into penal servitude in Siberia, where he worked and slept alongside murderers.

Crime and Punishment is not autobiographical but it is the writer’s personal experience which accounts for his intimacy with the murderer-hero, and consequently our intimacy. Dostoyevsky the revolutionary had plotted murder for a cause (the liberation of the serfs); and in prison camp he had spoken to a variety of murderers and sensed the different emotions in play – pride, horror, vanity. We get so close to Raskolnikov that we can practically see the proud, desperate, angry look in his eyes.

Crime and Punishment is crime thriller meets Karl Marx and Jesus Christ. Grounded in the realistic context of a St Petersburg slum, the hero commits murder as a sort of experiment. ‘Have I the right to murder?’ He wants to know. It’s an outrageous premise and could have produced a rather abstract novel of ideas, had it not been written out of the experience of a man who went to Siberia a revolutionary and came back profoundly changed.

It has been a gift to adapt because Dostoyevsky creates great dramatic scenes and characters who are – at the deepest level – in constant crisis; who are always improvising, like actors searching for moments of truth.

Chris Hannan

Characters

RASKOLNIKOVALYONA IVANOVNA NASTASYASEMYON ZAKHAROVICH MARMELADOVLIZAVETA IVANOVNAKOCHSKABICHEVSKYDARYA FRANTSOVNASONYA MARMELADOVAPORFIRY PETROVICHILYA PETROVICHPULKHERIA ALEXANDROVNADUNYA ROMANOVNARAZUMIKHINPYOTR PETROVICH LUZHINKATERINA IVANOVNADOCTORPRIESTNIKOLAILEBEZYATNIKOVAMALIA IVANOVNA

And CUSTOMERS, STUDENTS, WORKERS,BYSTANDERS, PROSTITUTES.

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 usShow us the face of your love.

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

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

Through the dark night we hope and we pray likeSentries 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 now.

RASKOLNIKOV.How much for the watch?

ALYONA.You come with such rubbish.And I’m stupid, I pay too much.

RASKOLNIKOV.Fine watch.I tell you tell you what, I’ll take four roubles for it.

ALYONA.Rouble and a half.

RASKOLNIKOV.It’s my father’s watch.It’s worth at least four.

ALYONA stops appraising the watch and hands it back to him.

ALYONA.Well, keep it to remind you of your father and the guidance he gave you as a boy.

ALYONA opens the door to show him out.

RASKOLNIKOV.Rouble, I’ll take rouble and a half.

ALYONA gets her keys out and goes through a cotton curtain hanging in the doorway to a second room, a small boxroom where she keeps the pledges and valuables.

RASKOLNIKOV is listening his head off. He hears her unlocking a chest.

ALYONA comes back with a rouble and fifteen kopecks.

ALYONA.Interest is ten kopecks to the rouble per month, that’s fifteen kopecks for the watch plus twenty kopecks you owe on the ring is thirty-five kopecks,take away from a rouble and a half for the watch makes one rouble fifteen kopecks.

RASKOLNIKOV.One rouble fifteen!

The business is done but RASKOLNIKOV is reluctant to leave just yet.

ALYONA.Anything else?

RASKOLNIKOV.I’ll bring you something in a day or two, soonish, not exactly when.Nice, cigarette, silver, case, that I lent to a friend.

ALYONA .You lent a cigarette case to a friend?

RASKOLNIKOV. That was a mistake.

ALYONA. What kind of a mistake?

She shows him the door.

RASKOLNIKOV.You must be afraid to be alone here, with so much plunder.

ALYONA.I’m careful who I let in and most of the time my sister’s here.She’s not the brightest but she’s strong as an ox.One time in the country, I watched her cut down a tree with an axe and walk to the next without taking a rest.

She shows him out. He offers to shake hands.

RASKOLNIKOV.I’ll be back soon, Alyona Ivanovna.Remember the face.Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov.My mother calls me Rodya.

ALYONA.I’ll pray for her.

She closes the door. Outside, he leans against the door and tries not to retch.

Scene Four

Angels

RASKOLNIKOV is lying on his sofa. The servant NASTASYA enters. The sight of NASTASYA makes him stiff with irritation.

NASTASYA.The landlady’s complained to the police about you.

RASKOLNIKOV.Oh. Why?

NASTASYA. You won’t pay rent and you won’t leave.I’ve brought some cabbage soup I made.

RASKOLNIKOV.Don’t disturb me.

NASTASYA. I know someone who keeps a boa constrictor as a pet.You’ve been asleep for a week.

RASKOLNIKOV.I’m exhausted.

NASTASYA.You don’t move.

RASKOLNIKOV.I’m working.

NASTASYA. What kind of work?

RASKOLNIKOV. I’m thinking.When you think as hard as I do you need your sleep.

She gives him a letter.

NASTASYA.Here, a letter from your mother.

RASKOLNIKOV.Oh.

He wants to smell it, kiss it.

NASTASYA. Open it then.

RASKOLNIKOV.No.

NASTASYA. I’ve been wondering how her feet are.

RASKOLNIKOV.Go away.I might cry when I read this.

NASTASYA.I bring you soup.

RASKOLNIKOV. Yes.

NASTASYA. I do a lot for you I don’t have to, you know.

RASKOLNIKOV knows his survival depends on NASTASYA.

RASKOLNIKOV.I’ll tell you what she says.

NASTASYA goes.

RASKOLNIKOV reads the letter. Then talks to the audience.

At first of course you don’t take in a word she writes.You’re not reading, you’re inhaling her.This is the perss the person who taught you to read and write – the rustle of a dress beside side you when you spelled out a word.

And then you begin to get the gist.‘Such joyous news!Your sister Dunya is engaged and just imagine, Rodya, her fiancé’s a lawyer!This proves God is good…’ (An unusual proof.)‘Now, when you pass your law exams, you can look forward to a future rich in opportunity.

‘The night before she made her decision she couldn’t sleep.She knelt before the icon of Our Lady of Kazan and prayed fervently and by morning she had decided.She has a noble proud soul, capable of bearing a great deal.

‘I agree, her fiancé is forty-five and too infatuated with himself to be truly in love, but his appearance is pleasant enough.His only fault is that he talks too much and can be overbearing… and perhaps a little harsh.

‘Oh Rodya, my darling, always love your sister Dunya.She’s an angel.She loves you more than she loves herself.’

It’s painful to be loved that much!To be a loathsome (and believe me, you cannot loathe me more than I loathe myself) to be from the point of view of economics some non-existent non-thing for which a sister is prepared to prostitute herself in marriage, is unbearable.You want to take an axe and strike out left and right at the whole rotten how can it be wrong to commit a violent crime if it liberates your sister, your mother, yourself, from psychological and material degradation?

Nobody these days believes in Christian ideas of morality.We no longer ask is an action right or wrong, we ask what is its utility.That is the only rational measure of morality: what outcome does it produce?And those of you who are free from religion and superstition will agree that a crime which is productive of good is good and the sooner I do it the better.

All I’m waiting for (I know it’s stupid, no one knows better than I do, do you think I’m an idiot?).I’m waiting like some witless superstitious peasant for

He would not say this in company.

a sign.

I’m hoping the universe, which is an accident, which has no mind and shows no interest, will give me a nod, a hint.The go-ahead.

Scene Five

A Husband and Father

We are in a public house. Some of the customers might be builders; or workers in skins; maybe there’s a student; or someone who looks like they sleep there.

SEMYON ZAKHAROVICH MARMELADOV wants to tell someone his story.

MARMELADOV.Where shall I begin?Aristotle said the character of a knife is to cut…

CUSTOMER.Go away.

MARMELADOV. My fairy princess.Where shall I begin?Aristotle said the character of a –

WOMAN. – knife is to cut.

She throws water over him.

RASKOLNIKOV enters in his top hat and raggedy coat.

MARMELADOV.Where shall I begin?Aristotle, my dear sir, said the character of a knife is to cut.I Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov have investigated the nature of intoxicating liquors and I can attest that its character is to rob.

RASKOLNIKOV.I don’t have any money.

MARMELADOV.My dear chap, I would give you anything I had but I’m afraid I’m penniless.

RASKOLNIKOV. I mean, if you’re a beggar you’re wasting your time.

MARMELADOV.Beggar?Five days ago I was a civil servant.Then I partook of some spirituous liquor… After that the usual story… I slept on a hay barge that night and exchanged my clothes the following day for a bottle of egregious vodka.

RASKOLNIKOV.Can I ask you to leave me alone.

MARMELADOV.I see, sir, that you imagine me to be insensitive to my wife’s sufferings.

MARMELADOV tries to involve the other customers in his story.

This noble soul thinks I’m insensitive to my wife’s sufferings.When I’m sober, indubitably, yes!She has a fineness of character which is insufferable.She was educated in a high-class school for the daughters of noblemen.Onleaving she danced the shawl dance before the governor and other magnificent personages forwhich she was presented with a gold medal and a certificate of merit. Themedal of course was sold – teehee – for drink, but the certificate ofmerit is in her trunk.I have gone to the pawnbroker with my wife’s intimate items; her private stockings.

RASKOLNIKOV.All this self-flagellation is hard to listen to, my friend,why should I care about you when you don’t.

MARMELADOV (the same question to different people). Did I tell you my daughter Sonya is a prostitute?