“I needed to know that I was not a louse.”

Rocks piled high. A staircase. A man with a theory and an axe.

Raskolnikov is a student living on nothing, in a room barely wider than his arms, in a city that never goes quiet. He has a theory. He believes some people are extraordinary, and the rules do not apply to them. To test his belief, he picks up an axe.

Sonya, a girl with her own reasons for shame, refuses to look away from him. Porfiry, an investigator who never raises his voice, begins to circle. The city presses in. The theory begins to crack. What follows is not just a manhunt but a reckoning.

Dostoevsky’s restless novel is reimagined as a thrilling chamber piece in an intimate study of the theories we use to excuse cruelty, and the quiet work of being found out.

Crime and Punishment is the debut production of Off By Heart, a new London theatre company committed to telling great stories. Adapted and directed by Jack Jacobs — actor, theatre maker and voice artist — the production brings Dostoevsky’s feverish interior world into the intimacy of the Jack Studio.