There's no denying the talent of playwright Jeffrey Hatcher, though his body of work has been somewhat uneven. His co-adaptation of Tuesdays with Morrie was charming. The concise, thoroughly entertaining Murderers and Three Viewings featured exquisite, brilliant scripts with a series of stand-alone monologues. But Hatcher's adaptation of the Wilkie Collins novel Armadale, which debuted last year with the Milwaukee Rep, was long-winded and poorly framed (though the talented Rep ensemble made a bad script bearable). The Milwaukee Rep tries its hand at another Hatcher adaptation as it opens its main stage season with The Government Inspector. It is one of four comedies opening in the Milwaukee area during the second weekend in September, and it appears to be the most promising.
Originally a Russian play by Nikolai Gogol, legend has it that the idea started with literary giant Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin. Pushkin told Gogol that he had once been mistaken for a government inspector, a situation that led to some strange behavior from those around him. Gogol wove the idea into a clever political satire featuring a cast of corrupt officials scrambling to cover up questionable activities when they hear of the imminent arrival of the title character. An unsuspecting civil servant is wrongly assumed to be the inspector, and comic mayhem ensues.
In the 170 years since it was first published, the play has been adapted for film, musical and opera. Last summer, Hatcher's adaptation debuted in Minneapolis, where it was praised for its satisfying juxtaposition of contemporary comic dialogue in a classic setting. Hatcher has fine-tuned the script since then, and a revised version debuts here in September.
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Last year, the Rep also opened its main stage seasonwith a political comedy, State of the Union. The play itself was less than impressive, but it did feature a Rep core company cast. A nearly identical cast appears for The Government Inspector, but this time around they'll have much better dialogue to work with. Hatcher has a brilliant sense of humor that meshes well with classy, old political satire. This year the Milwaukee Rep is opening with potentially its best comedy of the season.
The Milwaukee Rep's production of The Government Inspector runs Sept. 8 through Oct. 4 at the Quadracci Powerhouse Theater.
