Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, a novel considered among the elite of literature, tells the tale of a chronically impoverished man who suffers the psychological torment that comes as consequence to his brutal crimes. However: Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen’s Crime and Punishment, A Comedy, the upcoming Theatre Group at Santa Barbara City College production directed by Michael Bernard at the Jurkowitz Theatre, leans far more Groucho Marx than Russian lit.
Greenberg and Rosen are the same playwrights behind Dracula, A Comedy of Terrors, produced earlier this season by Ensemble Theatre Company at the New Vic. Bernard, in conversation with Greenberg, reports the author’s message about the play’s content: “If you're expecting the book, it's not that. I didn't even read the whole book.”
While this version of Crime and Punishment is mostly unrecognizable from Dostoevsky’s original work, it still, says Bernard, looks at desperate circumstances and trying to survive in a “rigged” system that isn’t set up for everyone’s success, regardless of how well they follow their social contract. “It deals with the struggle of what does it mean to be guilty?” he says. “What does it mean if you feel that what you’ve done is for the greater good — but you've still committed a crime?”