The Possessed, Prop Theatre and National Pastime Theater. Featuring a high-voltage cast, a mesmerizing score by Milkbaby, and Joey Wade’s stunning scenic design, this ambitious, flawed adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s grimly satirical novel promises an intelligence and intensity it never quite delivers. Michael Hannen’s hip, contemporary script blends the book’s heightened language with awkward Tarantino-esque dialogue (“This faggot is gonna shit over your life, and you’re just gonna eat it.”). And he gives his cadre of duplicitous, bloodthirsty revolutionaries an impressive litany of 20th-century characteristics (heroin addiction, cross-dressing) and slogans (“If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem”). But he fails to convey many of the characters’ motives and relationships, re-create any of Dostoyevsky’s specific satirical targets, or come up with any aims for the characters comparable to overthrowing the Russian government and church.
