Crime & Punishment Brought to Life in Antelope Valley

The room is dark, painted black, in fact, from floor to ceiling. The space is intimate - a 27 seat theater outfitted in a large, house-hold garage. The beginning of the show is announced and music rises, a wistful score featuring clarinet...Raskolnikov, played by Kevin J. Hogan, enters and sits.

Inspector Porfiry begins the play with a question, "Do you believe in Lazarus?" Porfiry, played ably by M. Steven Felty, presents here the question that is to become the refrain of the play.

Do you believe in Lazarus? Do you believe in redemption from sin and moral death?

This is the central inquiry of "Crime and Punishment" as performed in Quartz Hill in the Antelope Valley, CA. Dostoyevsky's famous Russian novel was adapted by the writers Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus for performance on stage. The version chooses a rather symbolic interpretation of the novel's premise and of its characters, placing Porfiry in the role of a moral interrogator teasing out the absolute truth from Raskolnikov as might St. Gabriel at the gates of heaven.

The fallen woman of Sonia is played by Anna Delrosario in the AVT production. She is the angel on Raskolnikov's shoulder, the one who invites confession and admission. She is prepared to lead the way to redemption for Raskolnikov, as she has seen her own way to redemption through the humility of confession.

The power of confession is certainly a central tenet of Dostoyevsky's novel, perhaps the central idea in the book. Can submission to god absolve one of the moral stain of one's sin? This theatrical version chooses to play up the role confession as Raskolnikov is driven to despair and finally to bended-knee prostration before the god of this version of this story, his mother.

Kara McCollum plays several secondary roles in the production, including that of Raskolnikov's morally pure and suffering mother. McCollum makes the most of her time on stage and leaves a strong impression on the audience, demonstrating a knack for inviting the audience to participate in her emotions.

The highlights of the performance came in the acting of M. Steven Felty. Given a less demanding task than Hogan in the part of Raskolnikiv, Felty brings a reality to the black box stage through a nicely modulated voice and a persistent set of quirks he gives to his character.

This adaptation of "Crime and Punishment" chooses to begin the story near the middle, with the murder already committed. For this reason, Raskolnikov is disheveled and distraught from the play's outset. This is hard luck for Kevin J. Hogan, who is challenged to find a way to ramp up the murderer's distress over the course of the play. Hogan does a fine job of maintaining his intensity throughout, but it is in the more subtly played quiet moments where the complex internal situation of Raskolnikov comes across best.

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The Antelope Valley Thespians (AVT); "Crime and Punishment"; actors Kevin J. Hogan, Anna Delrosario, M. Steven, Felty, Kara McCollum, producer and artistic director Nalin Ratnayake: This was the first show of the 2010 calendar for AVT, a new black box theater group operating in Quartz Hill. Check out their website for news, upcoming show information, and more background.