With such stupid, purely physical, infirmities, that seem to depend on the sunset or something, how can one help doing stupid things?

Dostoyesvsky's 188th birthday on October 30th and I missed it! Thanks to Jessica Crispin at Bookslut, I can now acknowledge it properly. I never knew that he was born the day before Halloween.... But after reading Jessica's funny (and excellent, not that the two are mutually exclusive) post about it, I have an excuse to post about the Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theater's production of Crime and Punishment that I saw at the end of September and neglected to mention on this blog.

I have read Crime and Punishment twice and, apart from my attempt to read Notes From Underground over this past summer, it is the only work of Dostoyevsky's that I've ever completed. I know how much of a shame that is, and given how much I loved C & P the second time I read it, I know I'd like his other novels a lot. The banter between Porfiry and Raskolnikov is exhilarating and the philosophical questions it raises are profound without feeling trite. And Dostoyesvky's characterization is sharp as all hell.
Take for example, this description of Peter Petrovich, Dunya's fiance:

Peter Petrovich belonged to that order of persons who seem extremely amiable in company and lay special claim to the social graces, but who, as soon as something is not to their liking, lose all their spring and become more like sacks of flour than animated and lively gentlemen.

This humor pervades the entire massive novel, though at parts it's much less funny than others.

The play adaptation I saw two months ago fails to capture many of those moments in the book. It would be impossible to adapt the whole novel to a 90 minute stage play, so the company chose to focus solely on Raskolnikov's meetings with Porfiry, and his relationship with Sonya. Those parts are all done well, but watching the play didn't knock me out as much as reading the book did. That said, the performances are strong and Joel Ripka depicted Raskolnikov's psychological struggles well. Thanks to a photo on the Pittsburgh Tribune site, below are Joel Ripka and John Meyers on stage as Raskolnikov and Porfiry during one of the invigorating interview scenes.