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Yesterday evening I saw The Government Inspector at the Katona József Theatre. Never in my life did I see this work better done. The production has got everything what I mean by a confrontation with the classics and has it in a way I always imagined. □ A Conversation in Budapest with Jan Kott. Film Színház Muzsika (Film. Theatre, Music). Budapest. 14 May 1988. The performance of Gogol’s The Government Inspector turned into a virtuoso and grotesque hunting expedition through the thicket of human baseness and unscrupulous opportunism, (...) The rousing company of the Katona József Theatre brought off also with Gogol’s masterly satire a production of extraordinary quality. □ Die Presse, Vienna. 28-29 May 1988, Wolfgang Freitag The acting leads far away from realism, to an eloquent pantomime, to a dancer-like mastering of the body, to sheer artistic perfection. (...) The production is striking, animated and colourful, the characters stand out against the battered gray of the background. The costumes are contemporary. garish parkas, highly coloured dresses; the inspector is still provoking anguish and fear. □ Kurier, Vienna, 28 May 1988. Kurt Kahl Only the names are left to remind us of the Russian origins, the casual elements of the set have a Kafka-like symbolism and the modern costumes

caricature splendidly those who are wearing them. What we get here is a highly theatrical exaggeration, a distortion toward absurdity, a reading with accents heavily put, and the dancer-like dexterity, the expressive force of the bodies also recall the best traditions of the silent films. □ Volksstimme, Vienna, 28 May 1988. M. S. A grimly funny procession of political caricatures, condensed into a hellish danse macabre with the help of extremely precise physical language and acrobatic brilliance. □ Kronen-Zeitung, Vienna, 28 May 1988. Heinz Sichrovsky The agents of corruption remove the real inspector. Now one can continue to bribe, to idle, to pester others. In this age of glasnost everybody can get the political meaning for himself. □ Öberösterreichisches Tageblatt, Linz, 28 May 1988. Hans-Heinz Hahnl The production is carried by the truly magnificent performance of the two leading characters. Péter Blaskó as mayor and János Bán as the supposed inspector, d Tiroler Tageszeitung, 3 June 1988, Maria Rennhofer