Notes from Underground

Fyodor Dostoyevsky's psychologically invasive works worm into a reader’s brain, and Robert Woodruff’s bleakly gorgeous modernization of his novella communicates mental contagion with punishing force. As the Underground Man, Bill Camp is a towering stage grotesque: enormous in his pettiness, gigantic in his resolution to be small. This capering lunatic has less insidious persuasiveness than the print version, but he’ll make you queasy all the same.—Helen Shaw