Nikolai Gogol's The Inspector General is a funny and inventive play. It includes all sorts of comic devices, from the broadest of slapstick to sly, finely-timed lines. The Harvard Dramatic Club production, which opened the Loeb season last night, adds a few more touches; lavish make-up (especially emphasizing Gogol's nose fixation) and underlings with Brooklyn accents. The result is an often hilarious evening, which suffers only occasionally from tedious repetition of obvious jokes.

Paul Schmidt, who also plays the leading role, has produced a new translation of the play called by Vladimir Nabokov the greatest ever written in Russia. Schmidt's version happily avoids the ponderousness of other efforts, and is marked by smoothness and consistency. However, it contains an oppressive use of "damn," "bastards," "sons of bitches" and similar expressions. In moderation they can be funny, in excess they quickly lose their impact. "Bastards" is not an inherently funny word, as Schmidt would have us believe.

The plot is thin, to say the least. The mayor of a provincial town and his partners in municipal mismanagement (Massachusetts pols could learn something from these guys) get word that an inspector general is coming, I suppose, to inspect the town. The mayor is worried and orders a general overhaul ("the more mess there is, the more it looks like municipal activity").

The officials then mistake a bankrupt dandy passing through town for the inspector. The young man, played by Schmidt, manages to make off with a good deal of cash and the mayor's daughter's virtue before he is discovered.

Schmidt starts slowly in his opening monologue. But once surrounded by foils he is marvelously poised, a dashing, foolish master of the simpering toadies. He rants on about his acquaintance with the great ("Well Pushkin, old man, how are things?") and finally falls besodden and exhausted.

David Rittenhouse, as the mayor had little luck with a lethargic audience, which did not respond to many of his good lines. In general he was more than adequate, but his b never changed, and lost its force.

Joan Tolentino as the mayor's wife was only to Schmidt in talent, and Laura did a job as the flighty daughter. Other the east, especially the town official, usually had one humorous bi-- a way of talking, etc--which began pale about the fifth time it was used.

The Inspector General remains farce of the first order, replace vivid and translation and performance are wonderful; they are the major, but not the only reasons for funny show.