It would be hard to imagine Victoria’s bicycle-lane drama in a play developed in 19th-century Russia, but UVic’s Phoenix Theatre plans to make it happen. The Inspector, based on Nickolay Gogol’s The Government Inspector, has been adapted to modern-day Victoria; director Linda Hardy, a fan of Gogol, spent five months transforming the script to include all the main issues surrounding our city. While the play deals with corruption, issues such as bike lanes and what Hardy refers to as “the poop in the bay” are also at centre stage. Hardy says that the show couldn’t have come at a better time, given the current political climate.
“I was thinking about how it’s our [the Phoenix Theatre’s] 50th anniversary and looking at what’s happening in the world, both in our country and, of course, immediately to the south of us,” she says, “and I thought that a political satire was just the ticket.”
Hardy says that it’s great to do something very contemporary, as it’s important for students to know what’s going on around them. Engaging in the silly side of the script is what makes a satire like this work, says Hardy, who even received a bit of help from the adaptation’s muse.
“The City of Victoria has been so generous,” she says. “They’ve loaned us a couple of their light posts, and our carpenter has been able to build wonderful bases for them, so they practically float.”
Local issues aside, Hardy says what makes The Government Inspector work even today is that it touches on a fundamental part of human nature.
“When Gogol wrote this—it was the middle of the 19th century—he had a line which said, ‘Well, you have to lie a little these days. After all, you couldn’t hold a good dinner conversation if you didn’t tell a lie.’ Well, I shifted that to, ‘Well, everybody lies these days; it’s become a social and political necessity.’ So here we have the incoming president of the United States, who’s a pathological liar,” she says. “So once lying has been made something that is permissible, and we’re all doing it, isn’t it something we need to have a poke of fun at?”
Hardy says that satire itself is a wonderful tool when looking at our own behaviour.
“For example, when Molière was writing—and remember, he was writing under Louis XIV—it couldn’t have been a stronger totalitarian regime, right? He was poking fun at the behaviour of certain establishments that, quite frankly, needed to have somebody poke a bit of fun at them because they were downright dangerous. And because he did it with humour, he got away with it. So as we look at what’s going on politically and socially, nationally and internationally, it’s become a heyday for comedians. Because if we don’t laugh, we’ll cry.”
The Inspector
Thursday, March 9
to Saturday, March 18
Various prices,
Robert Bishop Theatre, UVic
finearts.uvic.ca/theatre/phoenix