The Inspector at Yale Rep
Less is More
By: Karen Isaacs - Mar 26, 2025
Too much of something isn’t always a good thing.
The current production of The Inspector at Yale Rep through Saturday, March 29 proves that.
The play is a new adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s classic satire, The Inspector General by Yura Kordonsky, who also directs. Gogol wrote the play in 1836.
In the play, Gogol satirizes the corruption and lack of qualifications of the leaders of a small village in Russia and their reaction when an inspector from St. Petersburg is expected. He portrays them as stupid and lacking in any morals or common sense. In reality it could apply to any country.
This production begins with actors wearing a variety of animal and inanimate object masks (a lampshade) frantically running around the stage which is designed by Silin Chen to show two decaying buildings and rubble. Each of the creatures will become a character in the play. We then learn of the town’s corruption – the mayor uses the funds to build government buildings to finance his life; the health director and the doctor who don’t treat the patients but let them live or die on their own; and the judge accepts bribes. Then the postmaster (a fine Annelise Lawson) reads to them a letter she has opened: an inspector from St. Petersburg is expected; he will be incognito. It sends the various officials – mayor, judge, school superintendent, health director, and others into a tizzy. Their ineptitude and corruption will be discovered.
Soon, the officials learn of a young man from St. Petersburg who is a government employee and is staying at a local inn – and not paying his bill – Ivan Khiestakov. They jump to the conclusion that he is this mysterious inspector – in reality, he is a clerk – and rush to appease him.
Khiestakov is the wayward son of a minor aristocrat who has cut off his funds. Like any spoiled two-year-old, he responds to his difficulties with temper tantrums – screaming, crying, and pounding the floor. It is funny the first time but less so each time it is repeated.
The mayor pays his bill at the inn and invites him to move to the mayor’s house. Soon the others are flattering him and giving him money. Ivan is not going to turn this down; he is out of funds due to gambling and other frivolous expenditures and has definite delusions of grandeur. He sets up a production line to collect the “loans” that each is eager to hand over.
Soon, he is regaling them with stories of the famous people he knows and his accomplishments. Each boast is more ludicrous than the one before, culminating with his story of knowing the Tsar. The officials believe all of them.
Late in the second act, Khiestakov woos the mayor’s daughter in a tender scene, but in the next moment, he is wooing the mayor’s wife.
The play ends with the news that the real inspector will soon arrive.
The Inspector lends itself to physical humor. In fact, Hollywood made a musical loosely based on the original play starring Danny Kaye, who was known for his physical comedy.
Yet, it can be too much. Director Kordonsky lets each bit go on too long without creating any type of climax. How many times do we need to have Khiestakov roll around and pound the floor in a tantrum? How long does each episode need to go on?
Rather than the laughs building, after the first or second tantrum, the laughs petered out. The audience was “over it.”
This production has little real emotion in it. Each character is more a caricature though the actors do a fine job. Whitney Andrews, as the director of public health, brings the right degree of officiousness to the role, but Annelise Lawson, as the postmaster, steals the show. The judge (Darius Sakul), the school superintendent (John Evans Reese), and the doctor (Grayson Richmond) are one-note characters.
Brandon E. Burton plays the Mayor as a typical small town official, full of bombast and pretense.
While Nomè SiDone adds a touch of rectitude as Osip, Khiestakov’s servant, you keep waiting for him to be involved in some way. Mainly, he just stands there silently.
To drive home the point of the play, Kordonsky borrows a Brechtian moment and has the actors tells us that we are laughing at ourselves.
One of the highlights of the production is the sound design by Minjae Kim and the original music by Arseny Gusev.
The primary difficulty with this production is because each “bit” is drawn out to its utmost, the play runs over two and a half hours. A tighter production would have had more effect.
Tickets are available at YaleRep.org.