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text THE INSPECTOR GENERAL A Directorial Buffooneryin Five Interpretations of One Excerpt Nikolay Evreinov Translated by Laurence Senelick Characters: THE MAYOR, Anton Antonovich Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky LYAPKIN-TYAPKIN, the Judge ZEMLYANIKA, the Welfare Commissioner HUEBNER, the District Doctor KHLOPOV, the School Superintendent ANNA ANDREEVNA, the Mayor's wife MARYA ANTONOVNA, the Mayor's daughter SVISTUNOV > constables DERZHIMORDA LAUGHTER SATIRE HUMOR OFFICIAL ON SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT to the Management of "The Crooked Mirror": (Appears before the curtain.) Kind ladies and gentlemen! ... Through a printer's oversight your programs do not indicate that tonight's performance of "The Inspector General" is nothing less than a competitive exhibition among certain directors, invited here as guest artists by the management Ladies and gentlemen, that there is a crisis in the theatre is a longstanding proposition; the cry goes up in unison-"There are no plays . . ." We are counselled to turn to the classical repertoire. But is the finite 119 number of classical plays sufficient to all theatres and all repertorial needs? .. . This is what "The Crooked Mirror," which set itself the goal of utilizing all means of theatrical achievement, has decided to put to the test, a test which, we hope, will have some effect. To wit: we have deliberately picked out a number of classic plays, staging them in five distinct interpretations so that each play would yield five separate plays. I refrain from mentioning the names of those directors invited for this purpose, in order to prompt the audience met here to a completely impartial verdict on their creative endeavors. In any case, it is not a question of names, but of the rivalry between different methods of production, each sharply distinct from the other, and at the same time similar in one very important respect: the author's creation becomes uniquely unrecognizable through each of these methods. Consequently, if the experiment we offer to our respected audience succeeds-which you will testify to by your applause-we will be able to acquire five "Inspectors General," five "Woes from Wit," five "Krechinsky 's Weddings," five "Storms" and so forth. Not to burden you with figures, I may remark that the ranks of the Russian theatre will burgeon with, approximately, 120.completely independent classical works by five Gogols, five Ostrovskys, five Griboedovs, five Sukhovo-Kobylins, and ten Tolstoys-five Lyovs and five Alekseys. And this great harvest of classical works will be garnered with the help of talented and inventive directors. To prove to this most respected audience that there now really will be excerpts from "The Inspector General" performed on stage, and not some other play that has nothing in common with "The Inspector General," we shall first present "The Inspector General" in the guise in which it was ordinarily performed up until the crisis in contemporary theatre. Thereafter, the audience will have complete understanding of what strides contemporary directors have made and what strides they may still continue to make, if, of course, nobody stops them. As to the following interpretations, to elucidate to the audience the way it is to respond to what ensues on stage, and at the request of the management, I will set forth previous to each new staging, a compact summary of those assumptions on which the directors have based their creations. And so-first of all the usual staging, which demands no explanation and requires no commentary. CLASSIC STAGING (A yellow room with a door center, a window at left and a door at right. Over head, sky-blue teasers with details painted on. All the characters in the first scene of "The Inspector General" are seated on chairs near the footlights, the Mayor in the center. The usual costumes, although verging on fancy dress; the wigs are rather crude and obvious, but the acting is good, 120 "presenting" the text and hence the actors never turn their backs on the audience or use "atmospheric pauses" and other modern innovations.) MAYOR: I have invited you here, gentlemen, to inform you of a most unpleasant piece of news: we're to be visited by an inspector. LYAPKIN-TYAPKIN: What do you mean, an inspector? ZEMLYANIKA: What do you mean, an inspector? MAYOR: An inspector from Petersburg, incognito. And...

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