Murder most foul, in the Zola manner

Getting away with murder is nice work if you can get it -- or is it? The psychic consequences of unpunished crime so fascinated Emile Zola that he made it the focus of his first success, “Therese Raquin.”

Straddling a literary tipping point between the mannered cliches of 19th century melodrama and the modern psychological horror tale, Zola’s 1867 novel (later adapted by the author for the stage) provoked outrage with its frank treatment of sexuality and brought new legitimacy to working-class lives as worthy subjects of artistic treatment.

A well-performed, handsomely staged production by Santa Barbara’s Ensemble Theatre Company exudes emotional intensity and claustrophobic dread, albeit at considerable sacrifice of the novel’s breadth and period sensibility.

Nicholas Wright’s 2006 adaptation doesn’t do justice to the novel’s macabre descriptive passages, but it faithfully preserves the story’s surface contours: Frustrated anti-heroine Therese (Lauren Lovett) conspires with her lover, Laurent (Jamison Jones), to murder her sickly husband, Camille (Michael Matthys).

Jonathan Fox’s atmospheric direction effectively grounds the rationale for the crime -- trapped in a dingy apartment (marvelous set by Harry Feiner) under the watchful eye of Camille’s busybody mother (Barbara Tarbuck), Therese’s suffocating marriage is punctuated only by tedious games of dominoes with family friends (Edward K. Romine, Paul Tigue and Jessica Spaw). In contrast, her torrid trysts with Laurent erupt with fury and desperation.

Flouting prevailing literary and theatrical conventions, Zola repeatedly brings the clumsy conspirators to the brink of discovery and social retribution only to save them through dumb luck. They can’t escape their own consciences, however, and their descent into madness and despair unfolds with the precision of carefully observed lab specimens.

Nevertheless, by today’s standards the story is fairly creaky and predictable. Despite a few expressionistic staging elements -- a sound montage covering the murder and its aftermath, a ghostly apparition or two -- it’s pretty much left to the leads to carry the evening.

Fortunately, Lovett and Jones are up to the challenge of making the relationship compelling and believable -- the disintegration of their smoldering passion into mutual recrimination and revulsion was just like watching me and my ex-girlfriend. Score one for emotional authenticity.

Yet the modern feel of Wright’s adaptation comes at a price. With the exception of Romine’s Old World presence, the performances make little effort to evoke the original sense of time and place. Francophiles and fans of Zola’s novel: approach with caution.

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‘Therese Raquin’

Where: Ensemble Theatre Company, 914 Santa Barbara St., Santa Barbara

When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays

Ends: Feb. 24

Price: $25 to $40

Contact: (805) 962-8606 or www.ensembletheatre.com

Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes