Catherine Bennett resumes the weekly look at the performing arts world, with the sad end of Jerusalem, the luck of a cabbie, and French revolt. Do you hear the people sing?
Adam Alcock reviews Nigel Kennedy playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons and his own Four Elements at York Opera House.
Catherine Bennett highlights the trends in the performing arts world today.
Jonathan Cridford reviews 'Ghosts', one of the Freshers' plays for this year.
Madness. Is that the right word, or do I fail myself? Hysteria perhaps would be closer to the mark. There is no logical way to approach Tom Ellis’ production of Gogol’s classic farce, and no reasoned starting place for this review, so I may as well just out with it: never have I experienced such an unbridled and sustained lack of restraint in a theatrical space, amateur or otherwise, and never have I witnessed an audience so caught-up in a nervous synergy with the action, faltering halfway between tears of hilarious consternation and gaping-mouthed incredulity.
This was, undoubtedly, theatre at its most eccentric and stage comedy somewhere close to its lunatic fringes.
This was, undoubtedly, theatre at its most eccentric and stage comedy somewhere close to its lunatic fringes. I can’t say with any degree of exactitude if I liked it – it may take years to level with myself on that particular score – but I feel undeniably enriched from having been there in that place, at that time. It is certain, however, that I am far less likely to be surprised by dramatic mirth-making in the future, far less vulnerable to its various, violent revelations. Little short of certifiable insanity could reduce the exploded scale of this in my mind. It was, put crassly, as deranged as a wriggling bag of haddock and just as slippery-elusive; an objective exercise in excess.
Gogol originally penned the play in 1836, and the text has been extensively adapted. Not a farce in the sense of the familiar, Franco-British tradition, The Government Inspector trades more off its satirical, pell-mell incisiveness. All social classes are targets for Gogol’s stinging, slap-stick wit, and the set-pieces are of a more processional pace than the frantic to-and-fro of, say, Frayn’s Noises Off or Stoppard’s On the Razzle. The mechanism is less chaotic; doors don’t fly open and close at frenetic, break-neck speed, and there is none of the staple gender-swapping or multi-layered sequence of misunderstandings.
The plot, in fact, hinges on a single case of mistaken identity. The population of a provincial Russian (in this case, Soviet) town are undone by a have-a-go rake who poses as an investigating, Politburo official. The townsfolk, terrified of the roof falling in upon their corrupt, cosseted backwater, indulge this charming stranger with money, booze and ample wenching. When the going gets tough, the posturing imposter makes tracks, just before the real inspector puts in an appearance. Trapped foully, they are forced to face the extent of their bourgeois profligacy.
Ellis’ re-contextualisation of the play to after the October Revolution is a fitting, if obvious, one: it is a self-evident truth in a post-Cold War world that the inherent contradictions of Marxist-Leninist doctrine were always going to climax in high, if tragic, comedy. The undeniable horror of life and living is and never has been far from the scribbling of the funniest men in the history of letters, and although Gogol never saw them, there has surely been little more horrific happenings in the sad annals of humanity than the Stalinist purges and gulag archipelagos. The Barn, adorned with hammers, sickles and the blood-red flag, was a sharp reminder of the cruelty behind the laughter.
Ellis is to be commended for such a bold statement of intent. Alex Lawless, as the apoplectic Mayor of the town, blew several gaskets in a ranting, mugger’s paradise of a performance, and one can only hope that he somehow keeps the energy up and the laughs coming until Sunday. Also impressing was Ed Lewis-Smith as a less than subservient butler; think Parker from Thunderbirds played by the great Peter Cook.
In the final analysis, though, I was left a stumped, goosed and utterly useless spare part. You must see it to understand as my words are inadequate, because it many ways this was an abject failure: overly long, incoherently rambling and structurally questionable. It was also a balmy and utterly charming deconstruction of preconceptions, a thumbed nose at conventionality and rationality. I confess that I laughed. In fact, God knows, I wept. I needs must follow Wittgenstein: ‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent...’
Madness. . . ?
The Government Inspector is on at the Drama Barn from Friday 29 May - Sunday 31 May. Doors open 19:20. Tickets should be available on the door, but arrive early to avoid disappointment.
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