Stage Design
The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol
Gogol gave his play a telling epigraph from a Russian folk proverb: "Don't blame the mirror if your face is crooked." The action takes place in a backward little municipality distorted by rottenness and corruption, a microcosm of Czarist bureaurocracy. The setting reflected the petty knavery and turpitude of social life through a stacking accretion and jumble of elements – the floor, walls, doors, stairs, and platforms all twisted into a helter-skelter arrangement.