Word: raskolnikov
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...camp followers. But Roth reads so quickly and so engagingly that much of what could pass for smut is more parody than prurience. The book lacks the turgid seriousness that marked Updike's Couples as a more perfect example of the genre. Portnoy--who admits to being "the Raskolnikov of jerking off"--refuses to be taken that seriously...
...larger roles, Kathryn Walker plays the prostitute Sonya, who will redeem Raskolnikov, with a willowy tenderness and strength. Joel M. Kramer portrays a Ustinovian police magistrate with an ominous keen-mindedness...
...almost insurmountable problem to condense and excerpt a tightly structured novel down to a play. The philosophic discussions and illuminating encounters of Crime and Punishment must play out against a double suspense: the detective Porfiry closing in on Raskolnikov, and Raskolnikov's mind closing in on itself. At the Loeb there is no strength to either line of tension. The scenes are excerpted with little attempt to crowd in exposition, which makes them good theater, but it also destroys the time sense of the play. You just can't be sure when things are happening, hours or days apart...
...internal suspense is fitfully hinted at by an occasional scream in Raskolnikov's mind, a staged hallucination or a spiderweb backdrop. But these are only in use sporadically and with a touch of embarrassment. They neither interfere nor work. Glaser is a skilled actor with a tormented voice and a hauntng face, but he doesn't have the time or the lines to hone the play into form with the tension of mind...
...last scene of the play, Raskolnikov's confusion is strikingly staged and acted. It is gripping from beginning to end. The beginning and end of that one scene. The entire cast enters from darkened wings to hear the cry of guilt. But there should have been no need for their physical presence. The suspense of event and mind should have brought their presence into every scene. As it was they were felt only when seen. The limitations of stage adaptation provided an intriguing, enjoyable production that blocked the overtones of Dostoevsky's greatness...