THE INSPECTOR GENERAL, by Nikolai Gogol adaptation by Charlotte Hare

I was truly blessed in this enormous production with a wonderful script and two real "ringers." A graduate of a six year course in amateur directing was on hand with the original script in Russian to help me when I got confused about just where the comedy should be. Ms. Zoya Falkov, who had joined our program to earn an American degree (and frankly learn more of our language), was an invaluable resource. My other ringer was Sharon Epstein who created a set of astonishing lifesized and life-like puppets for the crowd scenes. Svistunov and Derzhimorda were thus played by a single actor: poor Ricky Shartzer who was strapped into a wierd harness that enabled him to carry and operate his twin. A terrific bunch of folks who actually trusted me and did as they were told, and truly talented leads made the whole production truly better than it had any reason to be. Alas no photos.

CAST:

Mayor.......... ........................................Robert M. Prochko
Superintendant. of Schools..........................Keith Kornajcik
Director of Charities..........................................Doug Rossi
Postmaster.........................................................Larry Pratt
Judge.........................................................Marty Seeholzer
Bobchinski.................................................Vincent De Paul
Dobchinski......................................................Rafael Rivera
Khelestakov.................................................David Crighton
Osip..............................................................Mark Gargiulo
German Doctor.................................................David Lantz
Svistunov..................................................Ricky V. Shartzer
Chief of Police...............................................Louis Busacca
Derzhimorda............................................................Himself
Lulucov....................................................................Himself
Rastacovski..............................................................Himself
Korobkin..................................................................Himself
Abdulin (Shopkeeper)....................................David Samuels
Mashka.............................................................Pamela Clay
Waitress at the Inn..........................................Kathleen Clay
Gendarme.......................................................Doug Shartzer
Anna.................................................................Zoya Falkov
Maria...............................................................Sara P. Greer
Superintendant's Wife............................Heather McCormack
Korobkin's Wife.................................................Julia Sheafor
Seargeant's Widow............................Linda Mason Browning
Locksmith's Wife......................................Jennifer Kowalczyk
Merchants and Shopkeepers........................Jolene Nickerson
.....................................................................Tiffany Highland
........................................................................Wendy Taylor
..........................................................................Mike Holyko

Production Designer...........................................Eugene Hare
Assistant to the Director..............................Ricky V. Shartzer
Sound Designer........................................Robert M. Prochko
Mask/Puppet Head Design..............................Sharon Epstein
Stage Manager.....................................................Shari Gross
Technical Director................................................Homer Farr
Costume Shop Supervisor................................Charlotte Hare
Bonnets by................................................Nancy Weiss Klein
Graphic Design.....................................................Doug Rossi

A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR

Nikolai Gogol's watershed comedy The Inspector General made its debut at the Alexandrinsky Theatre with the Tsar and his family in the audience. The Tsar is said to have had a high old time laughing at the universally recognizable foibles of a corrupt bureaucracy. Others in the Tsar's entourage, who no doubt saw themselves rather too honestly portrayed, would have liked to have seen the play withdrawn, but the Tsar's approval made it possible for it to continue before the public, albeit with a few alterations. All of St. Petersburg was in an uproar: "society" in high dudgeon at what it perceived as calumnous propaganda; others saw it as remarkably true to life.

Gogol himself was astonished by the intensity and virulence of the public's reaction. He set about writing a series of afterpieces and apologia for the play. His aim was, as he said, "to pile up all the vile things in Russia and to laugh at them...Don't blame the mirror if it is your own mug that's crooked." He asserted that the "main and perfectly honest hero" of the play was "laughter itself." He claimed further that the idea of an inspector general--supreme judge--had religious complications. His explanations only sparked further controversy and debate, a source of some puzzlement and frustration. He could never quite get beyond the fact that this delightful satiric comedy had become a rallying cry for one part of Russian society and a symbol of libelous subversion for another.

Gogol's intentions and explanations aside, The Inspector General is seen as the first realistic comedy and with Ostrovsky, the demarcation point of great Russian dramatic literature. Today it is impossible to see the play as totally realistic. It is most often labeled a "grotesque," which it surely is. It is clear that the very nearly trivial focus of the plot, is not so much a vehicle for mere farcical manipulation of gags, but the basis of a delightfully comic social satire. As Belinsky noted a century ago, the plot itself grows out of the personalities of the bureaucrats and the public that supports or at least tolerates them. The events of the plot proceed in a closely-knit sequence with little or no sub-plot and very few side issues. The simplest and most direct--the seeminly easiest--is often the most difficult and the most satisfying.

In the century and a half since its debut, The Inspector General has been subjected to a number of different directorial approaches from Vsevelod Meyerhold's experimental "biomechanical" rendering on a bare stage by seventeen doors to the more familiar musical film by Silvia Fine starring Danny Kaye.

In this new adaptation by our own Charlotte Hare (who is by the by responsible for building all the wonderful clothes you'll see this evening), we have attempted to capture the straightforward vernacular of the original by using the clearest phrases in American English possible. The emphasis is not, after all, on the complex rhetoric and poetry of a Pushkin, but on the characters. And the fun.

________________________________________Wayne S. Turney February 1997