Inspired by the play The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol. Canberra Theatre Centre. 29 May 2014
Sitting in the Playhouse of the Canberra Theatre Centre at the conclusion of Simon Stone’s ‘The Government Inspector’, I admit that I was slightly stumped as to how I was going to review such a complicated and unconventional play. Instead of a nice tidy storyline that could be summarised with brevity, I found myself floundering in a sea of art imitates life imitates art chaos without any floaties.
How did such a production come into being? Well, the Belvoir and Malthouse theatres were originally paired up with Australia’s 'so hot right now’ director, Simon Stone, and the same cast that would eventually star in ‘The Government Inspector’ to put on the play ‘The Philadelphia Story’. However, after a mishap surrounding the rights to ‘The Philadelphia Story’, the rag tag group found themselves upstream without a play and desperately searching for another to fill the spot.
Stone came up with the idea of doing Nikolai Gogol’s ‘The Government Inspector’, a 19th Century satire about a small Russian village that gets duped by an imposter pretending to be… a Government Inspector. But this would not be a straight interpretation of the original by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, they would use Gogol’s work merely as inspiration for a brand new, partially improvised and ultra-farcical piece of theatre that was devised in a very short space of time by both the writers and performers – essentially it’s a play about making a play.
The actual plot goes something like this: the director (Simon Stone) of ‘The Philadelphia Story’ has walked out on his cast and soon after Gareth, one of the cast members, suddenly dies. With no director, no rights to the play and one cast member down, the group decide to bring a theatre director over from Uzbekistan named Seyfat to do Gogol’s ‘The Government Inspector’ with them.
Enter Frank (Gareth Davies), an unemployed actor who is there to audition for the show. Through an initial misunderstanding, but eventual outright deception, he leads the rest of the cast to believe he is the Uzbekistani director that has come to rescue them – and there we have the parallel to the plotline of the original ‘The Government Inspector’.
What was so refreshing about this play was the complete lack of stiffness or stuffiness in the dialogue between the cast members. While this was partially to do with the improvisational aspect, it also has much to do with the fresh, efficient and rather bawdy writing approach of Stone and Barclay. From start to finish the script bounced along with nary a lag to be heard; the banter between the actors was sharp, swift and endlessly amusing.
While the actors (Fayssal Bazzi, Mitchell Butel, Gareth Davies, Robert Menzies, Zahra Newman, Eryn Norvill and Greg Stone) were predominately playing fictional and caricaturised versions of themselves, both Newman and Davies played the additional and entirely fictional roles of Frank and Dolores, the Latin American cleaning lady with a hidden talent for musical theatre.
It is a difficult task to single out any one performer in particular, as each and every one of them made such a unique and significant contribution to the production. Together as an ensemble, they were an absolute comedic dream team, keeping the chemistry and energy flowing freely among them for the duration of the show. The blend of both veteran and more fledging actors was also a nice contrast that kept the production grounded.
However, Butel’s star really shone during his intensely narcissistic diva moment toward the end, and is right up there for me with the great moments in theatre. Norvill’s Jennifer Tilly-esque portrayal of her character was also a highlight, delivering some pricelessly daffy moments along the way. Butel also paired up nicely with Newman as the musical theatre talent du jour, both displaying their very fine sets of respective pipes and hamming it up for their duet.
A strong and very effective feature of the show was the revolving stage, allowing a frequent contrast between the drama going on both on stage and backstage. Particularly enjoyable were the moments the stage rotated in quick succession, giving the impression of a montage or diorama. The movement gave much more succinctness to the story, while at the same time maximising the opportunity for quick and dirty gags.
While the audience was told from the outset that we would not actually be seeing Gogol’s ‘The Government Inspector’, this was only true in part. What we got to see was a shimmering, outrageously cheesy musical version of Gogol’s classic, with the songs and music written for this finale by Stefan Gregory. The fact that Gregory wrote this in about one week does not in any way take away from its comic brilliance – quite the opposite, it proved to be the sparkly frosting on the cake for this madcap creation.
Stone’s ‘The Government Inspector’ is what I hope marks the beginning of a new genre of Australian theatre, where the boundaries are pushed into new, innovative and exciting territory and imaginations soar – even if in this case it has been coaxed along somewhat by curious circumstances. While on the outside it does seem like pandemonium, the core of this production is both polished and well-controlled thanks to a highly capable team. There are wee bits of genius shining through in this work and I expect great things for all those involved in the future.
Deborah Hawke
When: Closed
Where: Canberra Theatre Centre
Bookings: Closed
