By: Matthew Kwatinetz

Opening on Friday, June 1st, Theater Under Ground presents Crime and Punishment in a new award-winning adaptation that has taken the country by storm. This production at CHAC Lower Level is likely to be the last production before the upcoming commercial run in New York. In anticipation of this exciting Seattle opening, Live Wire caught up with Curt Columbus, Artistic Director of Trinity Repertory Theatre, and adaptor of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment (with Marilyn Campbell).

Live Wire: How are things at your theatre (Trinity Rep)?

Curt: (Laughs) It’s a bit like pushing a boulder up a hill.

Live Wire: (Laughing) We can relate! But up it goes. Tell us about how people reacted to previous productions of your adaptation of Crime and Punishment.

Curt: It’s been a real surprise how successful it has been. Common wisdom may suggest that this book might not play in the theatre. But we’ve seen otherwise. It is a 90 minute meditation on God and Man, faith and redemption—set against the themes of Crime and Punishment. We’re not trying to recreate the novel.

Live Wire: What do you think has inspired such a positive reaction to this play?

Curt: Honestly, it has been overwhelming—at the end of nearly every show the audience leapt to their feet and I was shocked. I love the play but did not expect that as a reaction. But in trying to understand it more over these months, I think people are looking for stories to be told, not in a single direction but from all sides of it. This novel, you can really place yourself inside it. Not that I would—or you would—attack someone with an ax! But that is not what the story is really about. We relate to it because ultimately it is a human message about hope and redemption.

Live Wire: How did your collaboration with Marilyn Campbell come about?

Curt: Michael Halberstam at Writers’ Theatre introduced me to Marilyn Campbell. She had done a 4-hour adaptation of Crime and Punishment with 65 characters. I asked her if she could help me with my idea for a new adaptation, but I said I’m only interested in doing something like a 3 character version. Can you imagine?

Live Wire: The ffiirst question out of people’s mouths when they hear of this adaptation is how could you possibly get it down to 90 minutes?

Curt: For me, adaptation is always about the question: where is the spiritual theme that relates to our real lives? That’s what I’m fascinated by. Some might say the duality is more interesting, but the question to me is how do you live your life in a moral fashion given the complexity of the world? Faith that’s not demagoguery—there has to be room for forgiveness.

Live Wire: Why these three characters?

Curt: I went back to the novel and looked at its ffllow and decided on these 3 characters. At one point it was two of the characters in there now and a different one, but that was a totally different play.

Live Wire: You are known for being infflluenced by Film Noir and American musicals, do you think those elements are present here or did you discard them for this more literary genre?

Curt: That would be like forgetting myself! Film Noir and American musicals are my idioms for everything. Look at this story in a new way. The facts are simple: that it’s a gumshoe, his mark, the fallen woman. It’s classic Film Noir, and people don’t expect that. I don’t know, I still get surprised at the reaction to it. People feel it at a visceral level. If the play is too literal, that will kill the soul of it.

Live Wire: Does C & P have relevance today?

Curt: There are days when I wake up in despair because of American Theatre that sort of walks around the country. This notion of community powered theatre that comes from a common place is really being lost—that is the opportunity with this piece. I want a theatre that is very hand made. A theatre that is actor-speciffiic. That’s what excites me about your theatre—you have a social agenda. This is something we’re trying to reawaken at Trinity, it was part of us in the past, but we’re hoping to bring it back. I’m looking forward to your production.

Live Wire: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us, Curt!

Curt Columbus was the associate artistic director of Steppenwolf Theater Company from 2000-2005, where his translations of Cherry Orchard and Uncle Vanya were presented in the Upstairs Theatre. He joined Trinity Repertory Theatre as artistic director in January 2006. His adaptation of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment (with Marilyn Campbell), which was presented by The Gamm Theatre and Writers’ Theatre in Glencoe, Illinois, was awarded a Joseph Jefferson Award for best new adaptation and is published by Dramatists’ Play Service. Curt lives in Pawtucket with his partner, Nathan Watson.