The Inspector General is the greatest Russian play ever written.
OK, I can be a tad hyperbolic. I hear it all the time. My students tease: “You think everything is a masterpiece.” “But it’s true,” I say. “This is a masterpiece!”
Don’t take my word for it. Vladimir Nabokov-not a bad writer himself-casually noted in his book about Nikolai Gogol, “…The Inspector General happened to be the greatest play ever written in Russian (and never surpassed since)…” Greatest play ever written in Russian?! Russian dramatic literature has some pretty good titles: Woe from Wit, The Lower Depths, Boris Godunov, The Seagull, The Cherry Orchard, The Bedbug. Yet, Nabokov singles out The Inspector General. And why not? There is a reason it is the most produced Russian play of all time.
The Inspector General’s production history reads like a who’s who of Russian theater. Stanislavski gave it a go. Michael Chekhov and Mikhail Shchepkin, two of the greatest actors in Russian history, have played the leads. Yevgeny Vakhtangov, the brilliant Russian director, thought it was a pure form of what he termed fantastic realism—a blending of realistic elements with circus-like dream imagery.
Most notably, in 1926, the greatest Russian director of all, Vsevolod Meyerhold, oversaw one of its most famous productions. Produced nine years after the October Revolution, Meyerhold created a grotesque dream piece that commented on the new autocratic regime in Moscow. In the final moments of the show, the actors were replaced by contorted mannequins, exact replicas of the performers themselves. The mannequins highlighted the climax of a play that he considered to be deeply serious, a work that spoke to out of control rigidity. The citizens of the Gogolian comedy are automatons and the petty government officials merely clueless puppet masters. For Meyerhold, these automatons and homunculi spoke to degradation, death, and terror.
But really, it’s pretty darn funny.
The Inspector General according to Russian scholar Spencer Golub is “…a satirical, allegorical phantasmagoria of Tsarist Russia in the form of a woebegone provincial town…” Simple and accurate. On page one, the townsfolk of “So-and-So” find out that an inspector is coming from St. Petersburg… incognito. They are instantly terrified and hysteria ensues. The play follows them as they mindlessly heap money and praise on a clueless fop named Khlestakov who just happened to be wandering through the town. Other than the brilliant and surprising climax on the last page, that’s pretty much it. Gogol wrote the most basic comedy of mistaken identity.
But as you watch the play, you will notice that there is nothing basic about it. It exists in a strange other realm where comedy blends with the grotesque and characters mug and preen like gleeful imps (Nabokov’s words). In that way, the use of the wonderful word “phantasmagoria” is so resonant with The Inspector General.
Though written in the 19th century, it easily fits the aesthetics of early 20th century Russian artistic movements. As Meyerhold demonstrated, there was a passion with all things mechanical as the constructivist movement swept through Europe. Artists obsessively highlighted the utility of objects and the robotic nature of humanity. At the same time, with the rise of film, Russian theater artists turned towards clowns and circus in an effort to make their productions a more present and live alternative. Often the result was a beautiful and eerie world of fantasy, punctuated by sharp angles and mechanization. It was an aesthetic that fit well with Gogol’s dream world.
Nabokov, who may be more hyperbolic about Gogol than me, eloquently wrote of The Inspector General in terms that establish the phantasmagoria dreamscape that this play creates: “The play begins in a blinding flash of lightening and ends in a thunderclap. In fact it is wholly placed in the tense gap between the flash and the crash…the whole world in one ozone-blue shiver and we are in the middle of it… The characters are nightmare people in one of those dreams when you think you have waked up when all you have done is to enter the most dreadful (most dreadful in its sham reality) region of dreams.” Nabokov captures the frenetic energy that happens in the two hours of stage time.
It is a play bookended by two announcements: the arrival of the Inspector General and the arrival of… well, I can’t tell you. In the moments between, lives are turned upside down. They and we are in the place of a dream—and like dreams, the line between reality and sham, between genuine and constructed façade, is difficult to determine.
And it’s funny… I promise.
The great partnership between UCCS and THEATREWORKS allows the students at UCCS to dive into that dream world and we are, as always, so grateful for the support. We really hope you like what we are creating.
Thanks to a generous grant from the University of Colorado’s President’s Fund for the Humanities, we are able to place a special focus this year on technical elements of the student production. Roy Ballard is designing a set that will highlight the constructivist elements of this Gogolian/Meyerholdian era. Sara Shaver, who previously designed The Merry Wives of Windsor, is developing a costume design that is delightfully askew.
In the true interdisciplinary nature of the Department of Visual and Performing Arts, music student Putu Hiranmayena is composing an original score. And, we will be graced by the presence of Laurence Senelick, the translator of our play, for a special Prologue lecture on March 20 at 2:30 p.m. It is a phantasmagoria of activity.
I cannot wait to welcome you to the show. We are having a blast putting this together. But really, how could we not? It’s the greatest comedy ever written.
-Kevin Landis
UCCS Student Show
The Inspector General runs March 10-20, 2011
Click here for information and tickets.
