Who: Red Bull Theater company
What: Benefit reunion reading of The Government Inspector
Where: Red Bull Theater website and Facebook Live
When: Monday, June 15, free (donations accepted), 7:30
Why: Red Bull Theater continues its outstanding online presentations during the pandemic lockdown with a benefit reunion reading of Jeffrey Hatcher’s fab adaptation of Gogol’s The Government Inspector on June 15 at 7:30. “Nikolai Gogol meets the Marx Brothers, Woody Allen, Monty Python, and the Three Stooges in Red Bull Theater’s latest terrific farce,” I wrote about the show, which ran at the Duke on 42nd St. in June 2017, adding, “It is just the thing to rid us of those fits of melancholy we all experience from time to time, perhaps more often of late.” Well, ain’t that still the truth.
Directed by Jesse Berger, the cast features Michael McGrath as Mayor Anton Antonovich, David Manis as the school principal, Tom Alan Robbins as the judge, Stephen DeRosa as the hospital director, James Rana as the doctor, Arnie Burton as the postmaster, Ryan Garbayo as Bobchinksy, Ben Mehl as Dobchinsky, Mary Testa as Anna Andreyevna, Talene Monahon as Marya, and the inimitable Michael Urie as Ivan Alexandreyevich Hlestakov, with Mary Lou Rosato, Luis Moreno, and Kelly Hutchinson in multiple smaller roles. Red Bull has previously performed unrehearsed live reunion readings of William Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, Thomas Dekker, John Ford, and William Rowley’s The Witch of Edmonton, and Ford’s ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, so they know what they’re doing. Settle in for what should be a hysterical event; if you miss the live reading, you will still be able to catch it online through June 19, after which it will disappear forever.