Crime and Punishment

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.

Chris Hannan's adaptation of Crime and Punishment was first performed at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, in 2013, followed by a UK tour.

'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

“'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.'”

'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'

'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'

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

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and philosopher. His best-known works include Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov.Chris Hannan is a playwright and novelist.His plays include Elizabeth Gordon Quinn (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, 1985; revived by the National Theatre of Scotland in its inaugural season in 2006); The Evil Doers (Bush Theatre, London, 1990; Time Out Award and Charrington London Fringe Best New Play Award); Shining Souls (Traverse, 1996, revived by the Old Vic in 1997; winner of a Scotland on Sunday Critics Award and a Lloyds Bank Playwright of the Year nomination); The God of Soho (Shakespeare's Globe, 2011); The Three Musketeers and the Princess of Spain (Traverse, English Touring Theatre, Coventry Belgrade, 2011) and What Shadows (Birmingham Rep, 2016).As well as original plays, Hannan has adapted Crime and Punishment (Glasgow Citizens' Theatre/Liverpool Playhouse/Lyceum Edinburgh, 2013) and The Iliad (Lyceum Edinburgh, 2016); and also made new versions of Ibsen's The Pretenders (RSC, 1991), Gogol's Gamblers (Tricycle 1992), and Stars in the Morning Sky (Coventry Belgrade, 2012).His 2008 novel Missy was awarded the McKitterick Prize for a debut novel.

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

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