Government Issue

The Government Inspector, through Dec. 28, Lantern Theater Co. at St. Stephen's Theater, 923 Ludlow St., 215-829-0395, lanterntheater.org.

by David Anthony Fox

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Published: Dec 10, 2008

The Government Inspector

Theater Review

I'm not sure what to make of Lantern's often excellent but not quite satisfying The Government Inspector. On one hand, I'm full of admiration for director David O'Connor's production of Gogol's satire of bureaucratic corruption and ineptitude. Five fine actors — David Ingram, Anthony Lawton, Seth Reichgott, Sarah Sanford and Luigi Sottile — play multiple characters with virtuosity and wit. Meghan Jones' scenery and Millie Hiibel's costumes are a marvelous pastiche of old and new, and give dazzling performances of their own. Most of all, O'Connor creates a high level of comic invention and absurdity (hard to do), and maintains it for a full two hours (even harder).

If only it were funnier, or more biting, or preferably both.

I don't think the problem is O'Connor and Armina LaManna's new translation/adaptation, styled specifically for Lantern's forces. They reduce the play's large cast to a quintet, which inevitably takes some of the punch out of the sense of populace — but it pays off in opportunities for the ensemble. I can't claim to have read The Government Inspector, originally published in 1836, in the original Russian — but this version's language is comfortably colloquial but not too contemporary, and the action hews pretty close to other translations of the play that I know.

And heaven knows the material remains topical. When an unnamed government inspector is dispatched to check out a local village, virtually every aspect of its rotten-to-the-core government is threatened with exposure, starting with the post, the hospital, the judiciary and the mayor himself. The only way to hide the corruption, of course, is with more corruption.

But it may be that while the ideas are fresh, the style isn't. "Satire is what closes on Saturday night," George S. Kaufman famously remarked. Comedy in general — and political satire specifically — is the hardest theater form to bring back centuries or even decades later. (Kaufman's Of Thee I Sing, a presidential election satire that once won the Pulitzer Prize, but which has proved stubbornly resistant to revival, is a case in point.) It may also be that what's needed for a modern audience to buy into The Government Inspector is a more sinister kind of humor, and that O'Connor's beguiling brand of absurdity ultimately gets in its own way.

Still, there's so much to enjoy in Lantern's production that I can't imagine anyone going home disappointed. The show is offered up as a family piece, which is rather daring and inspired — the kids at the matinee I saw were eating it up, and what an interesting change of pace from the usual holiday fare. Lantern is not only one of Philadelphia's finest theater companies, reliably employing some of our best local talent in inspired, out-of-the-box projects — they are also one of our smartest. I missed Thanksgiving by a couple of weeks, but here's my heartfelt gratitude to Lantern Theater. Our city is a much richer place for their creative presence.

(d_fox@citypaper.net)

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