The Inspector General
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The Inspector General or "The Government Inspector" (in Russian, Ревизор) is a satirical play by 19th century Russian playwright and novelist Nikolai Gogol, published and produced in 1836. Based upon an anecdote allegedly recounted to Gogol by Pushkin, the play is a comedy of errors, portraying human greed, stupidity, and the deep corruption of powers in Tsarist Russia.
Plot
The top officials of a small provincial town, headed by the Mayor, react with terror to the rumors of an incognito inspector (the revizor) to be sent to their town for an undercover inspection. The flurry of activity to cover up the various misdeeds and clean up the town is interrupted by the report that a suspicious person from Saint Petersburg (at that time, the capital of Russia) has already arrived two weeks ago and is staying at the inn. That person, however, is not an inspector; it is a young and quite light-headed (yet ambitious) minor bureaucrat (office clerk) from the capital who is travelling to his parents' estate and remains in the hotel simply because he ran out of money. Blinded by their fear, unclear consciousness, and deeply embedded servility, the Mayor and his retinue do not hesitate to mistake this comically insignificant dandy for the dreadful inspector. For quite some time, the pseudo-inspector does not even realize that he is mistaken for someone else; he enjoys the officials' servility, dines with them, extracts huge bribes from them, and ends up engaged with the Mayor's daughter. Luckily for him, upon advice from his more sober servant, he flees the town (promising but not intending to return) just before the town's high society is astonished by the discovery (from an intercepted letter) of his true low rank. The Mayor himself speaks to the audience announcing that they are only laughing at themselves. While we hear the officials arguing, the play is ended with the message that the real Inspector General has arrived and wants to see the Mayor immediately, upon which the characters "freeze" on stage.
Adaptations
The first film based on the play was actually made in German, by Gustaf Gründgens in 1932; the German title was Eine Stadt steht Kopf, or A City Stands on Its Head (a translation that keeps the flow of the title may be "A town standing upside-down"). In 1949, a musical version was released, called The Inspector General, starring Danny Kaye (who sang the famous lines, "What does an Inspector General do? Inspect generals?" and "And so we drink! But first. . .") This film is probably best known to Western audiences, in no small part because it changed Gogol's pessimistic ending into a more upbeat, Americanized one in which the Inspector General winds up an heroic figure. Werner Egk produced an operatic version in 1957. In 2005, playwright David Farr wrote and directed a "freely adapted" version for London's National Theatre called "The UN Inspector," which transposed the action to a modern-day ex-Soviet republic.
The play seems to be the clear inspiration for the "Hotel Inspector" episode of John Cleese's comedic television series Fawlty Towers.
In the Netherlands famous Dutch comedian Andre van Duin made his own Dutch version of the play called "De Boezemvriend" (meaning bosom friend, best buddy). It took place in The Netherlands during the Napoleonic era.
The play has been translated in all European languages and remains popular, inasmuch as it deals with the hypocrisies of everyday life along with the corruption perpetrated by the rich and privileged.
Quotes
"Alexander of Macedon was a hero, it is true. But that's no reason for breaking chairs."eo:La Revizoro nl:The Inspector General ru:Ревизор (комедия)