Comic relief in RVP’s ‘Inspector’
Old plays can teach us much about contemporary life. Case in point: “The Government Inspector,” Nikolai Gogol's 19th century farce about gullibility, mistaken identity, bribery and mass hysteria in a rural Russian village.
Gogol's script, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher, and beautifully directed by College of Marin drama department head Lisa Morse, is a work of comic genius in which everything that might go wrong does go wrong, in a town full of deeply flawed citizens — flawed not because they are corrupt, which, of course, they are, but because they are Russian, their circumstances absurd but absurdly normal.
Ross Valley Players' “The Government Inspector” is a delightfully vicious parody of smalltown ambitions that sails along from beginning to end with quick pacing and surging energy. In it, the town's denizens share feverish rumors of a visit by an official from the capital. Anticipation fills their every moment, and at the tortured insistence of mayor Anton Antonovich Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky (Steve Price), they launch a plan to spruce up their town in hope of winning approval from the emissary —perhaps even from the Tsar himself.
Their plan is so half-baked and their town so dysfunctional that there's little hope of success. There is, however, the appearance of success, and appearance becomes their goal — a new makeshift hospital with rooms too small for adults, populated with children pulled from school to act as patients, a gigantic sports arena “with a
small school attached,” dilapidated businesses and rotted buildings described as “under construction.” If any of this sounds similar to Russian reports about “military achievements” in Ukraine, it's proof that human nature doesn't change.
To reinforce their imaginary makeover, the villagers cough up donations to the inspector — “loans,” in the mayor's words, “that never need repaying.” Every official chips in: the judge (Philip Goleman), the school superintendent (Robert Molossi), the hospital director (Christopher Harney), the district doctor (Greg Nelson) and even the mayor himself. A more incompetent collection of clowns would be hard to imagine, unless you consider the administrations of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
Into this avaricious rural cesspool steps Hlestekov (Michel B. Harris), an itinerant wastrel who's lost the last of his money to a cavalry officer in an alcoholfueled card game. Realizing that the villagers have mistaken him for the government inspector, he plays along, making promises as he pockets their money.
Harris is a quick-witted, crisply articulate and nuanced actor perfectly cast in this role, his character's confident self-containment the diametrical opposite of the mayor's cringing, scheming hysteria.
The two are well balanced, but Hlestekov's even-tempered rationality can't counterbalance the entire town's growing delusions, riotously portrayed by a marvelous assortment of actors on a Ron Krempetz set both somber and silly, decorated with 19th century-style portraits of the show's characters. Sound designer Billie Cox and lighting designer Ellen Brooks make significant contributions.
Reprising their roles from the Morse-helmed 2017 COM production, Benjamin Vasquez and Raysheina de LeonRuhs are delightfully ridiculous as commedia dell'arte twins Dobchinsky and Bobchinsky, who don't make much sense when they speak but aren't supposed to. Alexandra Weitman is rocksolid in three roles but is at her best as Grusha.
Pamela Ciochetti is fantastic as the mayor's manipulative, uninhibited wife, Anna, who can't keep her hands or suggestive comments to herself. As her daughter, Marya, Hunter CandrianVelez shares many of her mother's impulsive tendencies. Natalie Mendes appears in a recurring gender-bending role as the village postmaster who reads everyone's mail, and Daphne Cowlin has a cameo as the imperial messenger.
Price is brilliant as the embodiment of self-inflated officialdom, but the real dark horse in this production is RVP veteran Wood Lockhart, who absolutely nails the part of Osip, Hlestekov's long-suffering servant. Lockhart has always been capable of great subtlety; in this production he and Osip fit each other hand-in-glove.
As Morse points out in the playbill's notes, Gogol's farce anticipated 20th century slapstick comedy like the Keystone Cops, Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges. The tradition continues right into the present with animated sitcoms like “Family Guy.” The human need to believe and our penchant for inebriation make us our own worst enemies: a can't-fail comedic strategy. Three months ago, Ukrainians leveraged this reality with signs greeting Russian invaders: “Go home and drink yourselves to death.”
Gogol would not have been at all surprised that a former KGB thug somehow gained control of the world's largest country, or that, surrounded by sycophants, he became one of the world's richest men on a salary of only $125,000 per year. “The Government Inspector” makes the evolution of such circumstances hilariously clear.