Celebrating Dostoyevsky Day

The first Saturday of July Dostoyevsky is celebrated as part of St Petersburg White Nights Festival.

Join us for a free pre-show conversation with The Street Artistic Director Caroline Stacey OAM, award-winning writer Subhash Jaireth and Canberra actor Karen Vickery in a dialogue with Dostoyevsky. Together, they will discuss interpretations and adaptations of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment and translations where loss is mourned and gains celebrated.

The Street’s production of the adaptation by Marilyn Campbell-Lowe and Curt Columbus has travelled from Russia to Canberra through different events in time since its publication in 1866:
 

• English translation of Russian novel;
• Translation of English Text into English dramatic text;
• Translation of English dramatic text into performance text which often remains unwritten, undocumented and thereby elusive; and
• Translation of performance text into performance where bodies live it and express it.

This is a free event, but reservations are essential to manage numbers. Please RSVP with name and telephone number via rsvp@thestreet.org.au. 
Stay for The Street performance at 7:30pm of the stage adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment and experience a thrilling detective story of the soul. Book Here

Street 3 | Unreserved | Duration 45 minutes
Click here for information on COVID 19 venue safety.
 

Caroline Stacey OAM is the Artistic Director/CEO of The Street Theatre, Canberra’s award-winning arts powerhouse. A multi-award winning director including Canberra Artist of the Year (2012), and the recipient of an OAM in 2022 Caroline has an extensive career as a festival director leading Castlemaine State Festival for seven years and as a stage director of theatre and opera working for companies as diverse as West Australian Opera, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne International Arts Festival, Sydney Opera House, Queensland Music Festival, Victorian Opera, Canterbury Opera, Melbourne Opera, Saltpillar Theatre, and Downstage Theatre (NZ). Works directed for The Street include: Crime and Punishment; In His Words; Twenty Minutes with the Devil; Breaking The Castle; Flight Memory; A Doll’s House, Part 2; Venus in Fur; Diary of a Madman; The Weight of Light; Boys Will Be Boys; Cold Light; Constellations; The Chain Bridge; The Faithful Servant; MP; To Silence; The Give and Take; Where I End & You Begin; Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris; Dido and Aeneas; Capital, Medea; The Jade Harp; Albert Herring; The Six Memos; and From A Black Sky.

Subhash Jaireth was born in Punjab, India. Between 1969 and 1978 he spent nine years in Russia studying geology and Russian literature. In 1986 he migrated to Australia. He has published poetry in Hindi, English and Russian with published works including: Golee Lagne se Pahle (Before the Bullet Hit Me); Unfinished Poems for Your Violin; Yashodhara: Six Seasons Without You. Books of prose fiction and non-fiction include: To Silence: Three Autobiographies; After Love; Moments; Incantations. His most recent books include a collection of essays titled Spinoza’s Overcoat: Travels with Writers and Poets, which won the 2021 ACT Book of the Year, a book of translation from Hindi, Rain Clouds: Love Songs of Meerabai and Aflame. To Silence, connecting a 15th century Indian poet with Chekov’s younger sister, was produced at The Street in 2012. Subhash has written about Dostoyevsky and Russian culture in The Dead Bridge of Sunil Sandhana in his recent book published in 2024 George Orwell’s Elephant and other essays; Anna and Fyodor in Basel, a short story in the collection, Moments; and In Praise of Slow Reading for Panorama in The Canberra Times.

Karen Vickery is a multi-award winning Canberra based actor and director. In 2022, Karen received the Helen Tsongas Award for outstanding Acting at the Canberra Critics Awards. A NIDA graduate and lecturer Karen has performed for Sydney Theatre Company and Belvoir as well as in commercial theatre, film and television over her 40 year professional career. She has translated Russian plays for NIDA, WAAPA, Sydney Theatre Company. Karen was co-founder of Pigeonhole Theatre, performing in Playhouse Creatures and directing Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. She is a founder of Independent Theatre Collective, ACT Hub and Artistic Director of resident theatre company Chaika Theatre, recipient of Canberra Critics and Ovation Awards. At ACT Hub, Karen has produced and performed in Three Tall Women, Collected Stories, The Children, and Seagull which she translated and adapted. She is currently in rehearsal for Kate Mulvany’s adaptation of Mary Stuart. Karen has just completed filming Alice: Mother of Cinema (National Theatre of Parramatta and NIDA); a guest role in NCIS: Sydney as Russian Consul-General, Lina Bukovska; and, recently wrapped production of an independent film by Jess Beange called Animal.