Richard Crane has adapted several classics for the stage, and his competent dramatisation of Dostojevskij’s masterpiece is simply exceptional. It is a splendid reproduction of the original’s black, moral but simultaneously cheerful story about a group of brothers and how they plan revenge against the father who neither gave them love nor attention. It is not a traditional, naturalistic dramatisation. Crane’s text is rather a piece of focused narrating-theatre, casting light on the real core of the play: the conceptual discussion about God, guilt and free will. In a brilliantly subtle manner, the four male actors drift in and out of the original’s central characters to create a grand mosaic of metaphysical and poetic observations.
