Crime, Costumes and Comedy at the Jurkowitz 

Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen, the playwrights who took a bite out of a famous Transylvanian count in Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors – which opened Ensemble Theatre’s current season – have also set their mandibles on digging into Dostoevsky with Crime and Punishment, a Comedy, which makes its local debut at the Jurkowitz Theatre to close out SBCC Theatre Group’s season. 

But don’t worry if you’ve never read past the first few pages of the monumental book. 

“It’s a very silly re-imagining of a big, hefty and very serious novel that they use as a jumping off point,” said Michael Bernard, who is directing the April 16-May 3 production after helming the pirate-powered Treasure Island last season. “I like to say it’s ‘Crime and Punishment’ by way of the Marx Brothers. We’ve got eight actors playing more than 50 characters, and there’s a lot of running around and throwing costumes on and off. My hope is that it comes off as barely controlled chaos.” 

The 90-minute play – the classic story of impoverished student Raskolnikov who becomes a murderer in order to save his family – is transformed into a very fast and very funny romp that is somehow still touching despite the whirlwind activity, Bernard said. 

“It’s a lot of really quick comedy with some real honest emotional moments in the middle,” he said. “You can almost forget about the comedy and get swept away.” 

Theatrical Russophiles might also be pleasantly washed overboard by seeing the trio of staged productions – all of them set in roughly the same time period in Russia. I’m talking of course about adding Crime and Punishment: a Comedy to Out of the Box’s Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 based on a section of War and Peace, and Ensemble’s Rachmaninoff and the Tsar, which plays through this weekend.

“I don’t know what was in the water a year ago, but I think it’s a fun coincidence,” Bernard said. “Although considering the change in the political climate, I don’t know that I would plan to do a Russian play right now.”