Corruption collides with confusion and bureaucracy with buffoonery in the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance’s production of The Government Inspector, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher in 2009 from Nikolai Gogol’s 1836 play.

While the original play was set in Russia circa 1836, Malcolm Tulip's version could be anywhere, anytime that corruption is common—but certainly not here or now.

“We’ve taken things from different periods,” says Tulip, who directs U-M musical theater students in the production, which runs February 20-23 at the Arthur Miller Theatre.

The play is set in a small village where everyone in a position of power is corrupt. “Six gymnasiums have been built to get names on buildings they don’t need,” Tulip says.

When the crooked leadership learns an undercover inspector is coming to root out corruption, they panic. They bribe. They flatter. They flirt. The inspector moves into the mayor’s house and receives large “loans” from the local officials. “They fall over backward to make sure he’ll say good things about them,” says Tulip. “On another level, the mistreated peasants come across as the resistance.”

The local powers continue to pander to the inspector until a major revelation sets them spinning in another direction.

Tulip says Hatcher’s adaption is “very bold and contemporary and pushes the comedy.” It lends itself to a broad physical farce that allows Tulip, who teaches clowning—among other things—to do his trademark work. It also enables him to train students in the techniques of commedia dell’arte, to perform exaggerated renditions of comedic types.

This is a studio production with a small budget, so there’s not much by way of sets. The play’s the thing, supplemented by some props and costumes.

Since costume designer Ellie Van Engen didn’t have the budget to have costumes built for the show, she searched U-M’s large stock to find the look she wanted. She selected quilted materials in bright colors and a variety of patterns, making each costume unique but able to come together for a unified ensemble look.

“Russian culture has so much quilting in it,” she says. But the bold colors and patterns, as well as such things as shoulder pads, also helped her support the show’s larger-than-life characters. “Malcolm wanted to lean into the absurdity of these characters.”

Actors had to be able to move easily in the clothes, so she made sure costumes were loose enough and could stretch to meet the physical demands of the show.  

This isn’t a musical, but when you put musical theater students on a stage, there has to be music. In this case, it isn’t recorded music, and it doesn’t require an orchestra.

For this show, the actors wrote and performed the songs.

Nova Brown, who appears as Anna Andreyevna, says the play “is slapstick in its style and outlandishly melodramatic. That’s similar to some musicals.” (Brown recently appeared in U-M’s production of the musical Twelfth Night). “We’re not singing as much as we would in a musical, but there is a rhythm [to this production].” The production is presentational, with actors speaking directly to the audience at times.

Brown says they had a couple of rehearsals entirely dedicated to creating songs. “We listened to a bunch of Russian standards and looked at some poems. We thought about what we wanted the audience to take away from the big number at the beginning and the one at the end.” The music and poems served as inspiration for original works, which are often irreverent.

Tulip says the department decided to do the show back when Biden was president. “I was aware of the shadow” as the Democrats went back and forth about who would be the nominee and Trump’s possibilities improved. Indeed, this turned out to be the right choice for our times.

Of course, absolutely nothing in this play can happen here.

Davi Napoleon, a theater historian and freelance writer, holds a BA and MA from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from New York University in theater history, theory, and criticism. Her book is Chelsea on the Edge: The Adventures of an American Theatre.

“The Government Inspector” runs February 20-23 at the Arthur Miller Theatre, 1226 Murfin Avenue, Ann Arbor. For more information, please call the ticket office at 734-764-2538 or visit the U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance website.