THEATER

The Duke Theater
The Government Inspector

"All politics are local. Gogol's deeply silly satire of small-town corruption offers a riotous portrait of rampaging self-destruction. When the crooked leadership of a provincial village discovers that an undercover inspector is coming to root out their commonplace corruption, the town weaves a web of bribery, lies, and utter madness. This New York premiere of acclaimed playwright Jeffrey Hatcher's (Stage Beauty) adaptation offers a hilarious reminder of the terrifying timelessness of bureaucracy and buffoonery."

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS

Nikolai Gogol was born on April Fool’s Day in 1809 in the Ukraine, then part of Russia. His classmates at school, observing his various physical and social peculiarities, nicknamed him ‘‘the mysterious dwarf.’’ In 1828, Gogol arrived in Saint Petersburg, obtaining a low-level, low-paying post in the government bureaucracy. After an equally unrewarding stint at a second government post, Gogol began teaching at a girl’s boarding school in 1831. Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, Gogol’s two-volume collection of stories, derived from Ukrainian folklore, was published in 1831 and 1832 and was instantly well received, gaining Gogol the attention of Aleksandr Pushkin, Russia’s leading literary figure, who provided him with the idea for the plot of The Government Inspector. In 1834, Gogol began a position at Saint Petersburg University. Gogol quickly proved himself a resounding failure, and left this post after only one year. During that year, Gogol published two books of short stories, Mirgorod and Arabesques; a collection of essays; as well as two plays, Marriage and The Government Inspector. The Government Inspector was brought to the attention of the Tsar, who liked it so much that he requested the first theatrical production (1836). Gogol, reacting to heavy criticism by the government officials his play lampooned, declared that ‘‘everyone is against me’’ and left Russia. He spent the next twelve years in self-imposed exile. After Pushkin died in 1837, Gogol inherited the mantle as the leading Russian writer of the day. Gogol’s literary masterpiece Dead Souls and the first edition of his collected works were published in 1842. In 1848, he returned to Russia, settling in Moscow. In 1852, Gogol died, age 42, as the result of an extreme religious fast and absurdly bad doctoring.