Theatre for a New Audience and New York Theatre Workshop have joined together to bring Peter Brook's The Grand Inquisitor, adapted by Marie-Helene Estienne from a chapter in the monumental Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, to the latter company's East 4th Street arena. It's not an easy 50 minutes to sit through -- and many patrons may be wise to choose not to do so -- but this monologue proves to be a rapt and challenging experience, thanks in large part to the work of Bruce Myers as a 16th-century cardinal confronting the returned Jesus (Jake M. Smith, barefoot and bearded, in a totally silent performance).

For those needing to brush up their Dostoyevsky, "The G[...]