Created and performed by Adam Paolozza, Arif Mirabdolbaghi, Viktor Lukawski. Adapted from the novella by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Directed by Adam Paolozza. Factory Studio Theatre, to Feb. 19.
Word has it that Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network) will be starring in a new film version of Dostoyevsky’s The Double. No need to wait for that—TheatreRUN has already whipped up a wildly entertaining adaptation of the 19th-century Russian classic.
Physical comedian Adam Paolozza, co-star of the Dora-winning satire SPENT, and Arif Mirabdolbaghi, bassist for rockers Protest the Hero, join forces in this inventive fusion of music, slapstick and mime. Paolozza stars as Dostoyevsky’s sad-sack hero Golyadkin, a government clerk who finds himself bedevilled by a doppelgänger with a more winning personality. An unplugged Mirabdolbaghi, plucking a double bass, wryly narrates the tale while providing a jazzy score and sound effects. Lending support, an elastic-faced Viktor Lukawski plays all the other roles.
The bearded trio milk the comedy in Dostoyevsky’s psychological tale, which is partly a parody of Gogol. The show reaches its peak of hilarity when Paolozza (who also directed) finds ingenious ways of portraying two men simultaneously—from employing shadows and quick-change routines to using a limp-bodied Lukawski like a ventriloquist’s dummy. His clever staging is heavily indebted to André Du Toit’s expressionist lighting. Ken MacKenzie’s set suggests we’re watching a cheap vaudeville or cabaret act—a conceit played to the hilt in a hysterical nightmare sequence where Golyadkin’s double becomes a smarmy stand-up comedian.
Dostoyevsky’s novella is more than a joke, however; it’s the portrait of a mind descending into madness. TheatreRUN’s version barely hints at that dark side. You may double up with laughter, but this production ultimately doesn’t do justice to the dual nature of the original.
