Kid Pivot’s dance theatre adaptation of Gogol’s 1836 satire, The Government Inspector, is a paradigm shifting work that could popularise a new genre, inspire generations of contemporary dance choreographers, playwrights and voice actors, while, simultaneously breathing new life into Gogol’s skewering of the timeless and universal themes of the greedy quest for power, the abuse of it once attained, and the complicity of those who wish to bathe in its aura.
Playwright, co-creator and voice actor Jonathon Young has adapted Gogol’s famed work by incorporating world affairs and artistic influences from the almost two centuries that have passed since its creation. In the original work, a corrupt provincial mayor and their underlings were sent into a panic when informed that a government inspector was en route to evaluate them; in Young’s iteration, it is a Kafka-esque bureaucracy led by a tyrannical director that fears their Stalinesque reign of terror will be unearthed. In both versions, a shape-shifting rogue of low-standing is mistaken for the inspector and hilarity ensues. Imagine The Death of Stalin meets modern dance.
Young’s words, spoken by pre-recorded voice artists, are fused, to the millisecond, with the choreography of director Crystal Pite, who has worked with the world’s finest ballet companies. By synchronising the talents of voice and acting specialists with Canada’s finest dancers, Pite has created a powerful synergy; the truth of Gogol’s work is simultaneously verbalised and embodied. Revisor opens as a farce where slapstick abounds, as in the original productions, then, with aid of the sound design and compositions of Owen Belton and light design of Tom Visser, flashes back in dream like sequences as with Meyerhold’s 1926 interpretation, then returns to farce for the conclusion. Gogol’s work famously broke the fourth wall; this production similarly does so, with the narrator describing the choreography of the dancers during flashback sequences.
Doug Letheren, as the Director, and Ella Rothschild, as Minister De Souza, are the comedic highlights within an ensemble that all shines in this regard; both are cartoonish Disney villains. Rakeem Hardy as the Postmaster and Gregory Lau as the Revisor both have solo dance pieces where they dazzle with their agility and versatility. Given their absence from the stage, there is a risk of understating the importance or the skill of the voice work, but Scott McNeil as Director and Nicola Lipman as De Souza deserve high praise.
While, in Gogol’s original work, the inspector was irredeemable, the Kid Pivot appears to arrive at a different conclusion: that while those at the bottom of the social hierarchy may thirst for ascent at all costs, when exposed to the reality of those at the pinnacle, the soul, in its purest form, will rebel.
Five stars
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