2 March, 2005
Murray Bramwell

The Government Inspector
by Nikolai Gogol
Translated by May-Brit Akerhold, Neil Armfield,
Leah Mackiewicz and Geoffrey Rush

State Theatre Company of South Australia.
Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre.
1 March. 2005. Tickets $ 16.70 – $ 49.
Bookings BASS 131 246.
Until 19 March.

Between the colourfully decorated stage curtain and a row of babushka dolls doubling as footlights, a motley group of players, dressed in styles ranging from comic peasant to Soviet nerd, lugubriously performs I Was Made For Loving You. It is the overture to The Government Inspector, and it is all High Kisses from debut Artistic Director Adam Cook. The emphasis is on fun, fizz and audience appeal and, as the band segues from Kiss to Rap, the first night crowd is having fun.

In many ways Gogol’s classic farce of mistaken identity and small-town self-importance – particularly this adaptation, basis for the famous Belvoir Street production featuring Geoffrey Rush – is an excellent vehicle for Cook to show what he’s got in his theatrical kitbag and he has rounded up some lively conspirators to help him do it. Designer Dean Hills’ witty set captures the tawdry reality of the townspeople while their zany hairstyles and costumes, in colliding colours, tartans and textures, announce their vanity and social anxiety.

As the opportunistic wastrel Khlestakov, masquerading as an important government official, Paul Blackwell is foppish and splendidly silly. When the bribes come tumbling in, it is like watching Daffy Duck win the lottery. Blackwell carries the night with his inventive comedy, ably supported by the versatile Geoff Revell as Osip his servant, Don Barker, Peter Raymond Powell, David Kendall and Roger Newcombe as local dignitaries and Jacqy Phillips and Annie Maynard as the Kath and Kim-like mother and daughter vying for the affections of the imposter.

The famous pair of social climbing gossips, Dobchinsky and Bobchinsky (Jonathan Mill and Michael Habib) were reduced to a single voice after Habib’s very promising comedy ended abruptly when he injured himself in a door-flattening entrance at the end of Act Two. It was as discreet and stoic shoulder dislocation as one is likely to see – most didn’t know it had happened until after the final curtain. Coming off the interchange, musical director Philip Griffin took up emergency balalaika duties with quiet aplomb, but let’s hope Michael Habib bobs back very soon.

Adam Cook and his team bring energetic comedy to The Government Inspector but it comes at the cost of Gogol’s more grimly satiric intentions. The cheesy music numbers at each scene change give us gusto, and even disco, but they distract from the gathering bleakness behind the play’s comedy. When the mayor says to the audience – “What are you laughing at, you are laughing at yourselves !”- we are too busy having fun to really take notice.

“Lively production overlooks dark satire” The Australian, March 3, 2005, p.16.