For Beirutis the posters advertising a local stage adaptation of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment must now seem like some sort of cruel joke. Days of Israeli air strikes have left the city jittery, its streets deserted, its citizens braced for worse to come, writes Mary Fitzgerald in Beirut.
Israel's air and sea blockade means the northern and eastern border with Syria is the only way out for those who can afford to go.
Thousands have braved the road to Damascus, taking narrow backroads through Lebanon's mountains to avoid the main route which has been already targeted more than once. Cars, vans, trucks and motorbikes queue for hours at the border crossing, their occupants regularly peering skywards for any sign of an oncoming attack.
According to the Syrian government, more than 17,000 Lebanese refugees fled to Syria on Friday alone. Taxi fares from Beirut to Damascus have jumped from $60 to $300 due to demand from people desperate to leave.
This should be Beirut's peak summer season. July usually sees the arrival of hundreds of wealthy Gulf tourists, packing the city's hotels and restaurants for weeks at a time. It is a month when holidaymakers and locals mingle on the Corniche, taking an evening stroll past the lighthouse. Most of those tourists have now fled and the lighthouse is no more, flattened by Israeli missiles.
"The lighthouse is just 15 minutes away from here," said one nervous businessman in the Hamra area.
"The mood of war has taken hold and people are afraid of what might be next."
Some residents of Beirut's most vulnerable districts have started to move up to the hills that bracket the northern reaches. Others have no alternative but to sit and wait.
Mohammed Jaber (24) and his fiancee Maya (23) were out for an evening walk through Hamra's empty streets. Many of Maya's family have moved to her Hamra apartment because they feel it is safer there.
"At the moment there are 22 people staying in my tiny apartment." she said., adding: "We may be too young to remember anything much from the old war but we know that the Lebanese are a strong people. We are not afraid."