Michael Dean's '09 adaptation of Dario Fo's "The Accidental Death of an Anarchist" parallels the futile and ultimately frustrating deceits of the conservative 1960s Italian regime with the current American involvement in Iraq. Politically charged and incredibly absurd, the play was warmly welcomed and enthusiastically applauded Saturday night by the mostly student audience at Production Workshop.
"The Accidental Death of an Anarchist," which ran Friday to Sunday, opened in a sparsely decorated police station. But something was clearly amiss. The play's action took place in Milan, yet the set oddly evoked the sweltering sultanates of the modern Middle East rather than the mod facades of Milan in the 1960s. Khaki camouflage formed the backdrop, and the interrogation room's single open window looked out on a sandy cityscape. Arabian architecture swaggered in a mirage of desert heat outside, and a patriotic portrait of President Bush smirked inside just above the door. The stage design immediately set the tone for Fo's fast-paced political satire filled with relentless mocking of government regimes and bureaucratic agencies.
A Nobel-winning playwright and a sharp political critic, Fo often centers his work on the corruption of modern society. The characters' unrestrained monologues and wild rants reveal government exploitation but also illustrate bureaucrats' brainwashed indoctrination and ignorance.
Throwing logic and character development to the wayside, "The Accidental Death of an Anarchist" instead emphasizes storytelling and wild, dream-like fantasies to convey his political message. Each of the characters is a cartoon-like caricature.
From the play's opening scene, wild, comedic energy abound as the strident Fool, played by Eileen Meny '07, and the contained and determined Inspector Bertozzo, played by undergrad Sarah Tolan-Mee, duke it out. With loud and overly annunciated commands, Inspector Bertozzo attempts to conduct an interrogation into the death of a railroad worker and supposed anarchist who mysteriously fell out of the investigation room's fourth floor window. But the Fool's twisting, flip-flopping replies and frantic gesticulations make it hard to discern who is really in charge.
Like the Fool in King Lear, Fo's Fool takes on the role of the trickster and master magician. In contrast to the dense inspectors, the Fool gains shrewd wisdom and, ultimately, the upper hand. With his riddling rants and quick-witted games, the Fool puzzles his ostensible superiors. Animatedly played by Meny, the Fool bounds about the stage, in one moment sermonizing on top of the inspector's desk, and in the next, on all fours growling and frothing like a rabid dog.
The investigation into the railroad worker's death spins wildly as the Fool infiltrates the police headquarters in the guise of an investigating judge. As a master puppeteer, he turns the inspectors on their heads and against each other, only to later supposedly aid them in a cover-up conspiracy.
The first act culminates in a ludicrous rendition of the classic song, "Build Me Up, Buttercup," led by the Fool as a gaggle of police goons awkwardly try to keep in step. As the Fool belts out the lyrics, the policemen's hips rotate methodically and their arms pumps up and down mechanically like spastic robots. Met with delighted applause and laughter, this glorious and euphoric dance thrilled the audience and exemplified the infectious energy of student theatre.
With the introduction of the crafty news reporter Feletti, played by Alicia Coneys '09, the second act continues the adrenaline-charged pace of the first. But like all other characters, she too becomes susceptible to the Fool's long-winded banter and unpredictable ruses. Both Feletti and the timid, subservient Captain Pisani, played by Jing Xu '10, are irreconcilably perplexed by the investigation into the railroad's worker's death.
Pandemonium ensues as accusations of conspiracy theories and cover-up scandals sling back and forth. Deception and guises are discovered and swept away only for new ones to be contrived once again. One of the Fool's many guises includes a prosthetic leg, which is itself a deceit - a fake of a fake, so to speak.
As the play ends, the four-story fatal fall of the anarchist emerges as a bureaucratic scandal to conceal the corrupt relationship between the police and government. Just like the defenestrated body of the anarchist, it seems that all reason and rites have been thrown out the window.
