The Government Inspector

"Why are you laughing? At yourselves? You — you! I would bind those scoundrels, those rascals, those damned liberals! Tie this rabble into a single knot, trample it into mush, bury it two fathoms underground — that's what you deserve!"

The famous Khlestakov monologue, addressed to the laughing audience, will ring out at the end of one of the most celebrated comedies ever written. Gogol's play ranks among the most beloved works in the repertoire of dramatic theatres, primarily because its grotesque view of the elite of a backward society — where competence is replaced by supple servility and authority by vulgar power — remains unbearably funny.

And then there is the furious resistance of the powerful caught red-handed by laughter that strips them of their untouchability and others of their fear. That laughter is growing stronger in society again today.