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GEORGY TOVSTONOGOV: THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR, 1973 than what spectators could expect and were accustomed to."" It went hand in hand with a shift in focus on the Mayor and his company instead of Khlestakov and a reversal of the scheme of the play formerly staged "as a comedy of errors”, in which “the protagonist led officials of a small town by the nose due to a misunderstanding”.° Whilst “in most productions of The Government Inspector a tattling, foppish Khlestakov had aptly drawn profit from some scary and imbecile officials”, this time “Khlestakov’s imbecility drew the most cunning and dangerous weapon of sticking to power from the officials”.°” In order to emphasize this reversal and the above-mentioned “plus”, the standard translation of the play (created by Dezső and Pál Mészöly for Endre Gellérts memorable mise-en-scéne in 1951) was revised and the omitted word "fear" was set back in several places. Altogether some "180 corrections were made", "9 and the first version of Gogol’s comedy was also taken into account on the basis of a Soviet academic edition. Considerable omissions were only made in the last two acts: scenes with the inhabitants of the town i.e. both Khlestakovs and the Mayors dialogues with the complaining salesmen were skipped."§! The setting and the order of some episodes were also changed, e.g. the one following the visit to the hospital shifted from the Mayors home to a half-cut landau that gave place to a spectacular ensemble scene and Khlestakov’s appearance with his valet Osip in the second act was included in a series of scenes with the officials’ debate in the first act.°** While Tovstonogov followed Stanislavsky in explaining everything from the dramatic text itself, he organized 677 Cf. “This Government Inspector is not amusing in the superficial sense of the word. This is frightening, chilling and embodies the kind of ridicule that is said to kill. I might say that this production is sad, while, of course, we laugh at it.” No author: A revizor, Nézé, 8:5 (1973), 2. - “Laughter is extremely important. But it is equally important that it should not be selfserving. We are not playing a farce, we are playing Gogol, so we want to stage his famous gallows humor and bitter laugh.” B.B.M.: , Nem bohózatot játszunk", 9. Szombathelyi: A revizor, 6. Tamás Koltai: Tovsztonogov és A revizor, Színház, 6:6 (1973), 9. Saád: A revizor próbáin, 3. Major: A revizor, 13. Cf. “At the beginning of the play, a letter tells that a government inspector is arriving. Then the two landowners discover the government inspector in the pub. The director interrupts 67. æ 67 à 680 68. 8 the exposition here and presents, in a flash, who was discovered. A hooligan, a terrified worm stuck in a tree, an improvident little bastard in debt. [...] And when we get back to the interrupted exposition, we see the characters in a different way, so it will be much more effective later on, as the two people meet, dreading each other.” Tamas Major: Tanultam Tovsztonogovtól, Népszabadság, Vasárnapi melléklet, Vol. 31, No. 65, 184 March, 1973, 7. — "Tovstonogov felt the need of only one structural change: the original first act was broken into two with the scene of Osip and Khlestakov. However, the production has fully justified this change, since Tovstonogov set the rules of the game? with this moment, extracted from Gogol’s logic. The first phantom scene is immediately followed by the introduction of Khlestakov and Osip, in which Khlestakov appears fully but ironically comme il faut: ‘Well, look, they will be afraid of him, they will see him as a phantom!’ [...] This episode is there, Tovstonogov explained, to realize that this Khlestakov is a little boy.” Saad: A revizor pröbäin, 3. and 6. «139 +