THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR - Narva

Sergei Golomazov’s new The Government Inspector — a hallucinatory psychological bluff about how a lie becomes reality when those around you are too ready to believe it.

The action takes place today — in a modern city literally permeated by surveillance cameras. It seems impossible to hide anything here: everyone is being watched, everything is recorded, everything can end up on a screen.

But the more there is to see around us, the harder it becomes to see the truth.

Here, Khlestakov is not a harmless chatterbox who has accidentally stumbled into someone else’s game. He is bright, explosive, temperamental and dangerously charming — a liar. His greatest weapon is imagination.

He instantly senses the fears and desires of those around him and begins creating a new reality around himself. His lies become bolder, more aggressive, more seductive — and gradually take over an entire city.

But is Khlestakov really deceiving these people?

Or do they themselves want to be deceived?

The officials see in him the person they fear. Others see someone who could open the way to power, status, money or a different life. Each person creates their own image of the “inspector” — and eventually becomes a victim of their own imagination.

At the heart of the performance is an exploration of the mechanisms of self-deception, the fear of exposure, and the extraordinary human ability to believe a convenient lie even when the truth is right in front of our eyes.

Gogol wrote The Government Inspector almost two hundred years ago.

Since then, the world has changed, technology has changed, and the ways we watch one another have changed.

But people are still capable of seeing not the truth, but precisely what they want — or are afraid — to believe.

It becomes funny before it becomes frightening. And frightening — for much longer than it is funny.

The performance features a strong ensemble cast:

• Artur Smolyaninov
• Kirill Safonov
• Yulia Aug
• Igor Chernyavsky
• Marat Efendiev
• Shamil Khamatov
• Varvara Chekhs
• Tatyana Zachest

This is a modern take on The Government Inspector — a sharp, vivid, ironic and nerve-racking performance about power, fear, self-deception and the extraordinary human talent for pretending to be someone you are not.