The Inspector General by Nikolai Gogol

 The Inspector General by Nikolai Gogol

 

This is outrageously funny, but with a twist. You have all the good time in the world reading or listening to it, but you might also feel pity for the people of the world who live with such administrators and crooks.

I know that one of my eyes cried with laughter and the other with bitterness.

The regime I have known was communist…corrupt to the bone by definition. This was replaced, and I played my small “revolutionary” part, being mentioned in Newsweek, on about 12 (small) lines. But the system we have in place now, albeit way better than the one before, produces corruption like there is a huge conveyer belt, wherever there are public money, contracts and somehow, instead of reaching the infrastructure, health care projects they end up lining the pockets of big “wise guys” and politicians.

One recent scandal had one of our Forbes richest embezzling money by cheating on …cancer patients.

This makes the characters of The Inspector General seem not only funny, but somewhat ridiculous by comparison. After all, they only talk about a church that was supposed to be erected with public money, and never started…and a few other petty misdemeanors.

In the production that I listened to this morning, on my morning run, the title role is played by Beligan. They say he is the oldest actor still acting on stage…in the world.

I respect that, but I am no fan and have never been. To be honest, the way he speaks makes him funny, but not always in comedies, even in tragic roles. And I am not talking about now, when we could give him a break…come on, he is ninety five!

The play I listened to was some 60 years old; it had Giugaru and some other actors who had been long dead before I was born.

In The Inspector General (Revizorul for us) there is a kerfuffle generated by a tipoff: be careful my friend, an official is coming. The entire region is on fire and picks up the wrong man. They mistake a small time crook for the high ranking official and begin to pour generous meals, money on him.

The inspector enjoys it…up to a point.

Life can be better than fiction: a majority of the Forbes richest have been arrested and/or are on trial for corruption, embezzlement, tax evasion …you name it.

Local officials, like our heroes in The Inspector General, have been placed behind bars, after inquests which seem to be a combination of Gogol and The American Hustle.

Some of these elected (a shortcoming of uneducated people voting) officials go to dance samba in Brazil, have exorbitant life styles all on tax payers money, who…keep on voting for them.

“How silly can you get” …was a line in a song from the comedy Top Secret, with Val Kilmer. When we were teenagers we watched that movie so much, we knew the lines backwards.

 

“Watch this one; this will make you very popular!!”