Fo's "Accidental Death of an Anarchist' at the Curio

The Italian playwright Dario Fo has written some two dozen plays over a span of half a century, and he won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1997. But his work hasn't been seen on a Philadelphia stage since then— until now.

The Curio Theatre Company, based in West Philadelphia, has mounted Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist, and both the ideas in the play and its modus operandi couldn't be more relevant.

In characteristic Fo fashion, Accidental Death attacks governmental corruption and social injustice, which may lead ordinary citizens to take corrective and sometimes unproductively violent measures, such as planting bombs in public places. This theme has the potential to arouse ugly energies in the audience, but this play, like Fo's oeuvre generally, is comedic— all the more surprising and effective in getting his point across.

Suicide or murder?

Accidental Death, first produced in 1970, is based on a real event that took place the previous year: A man in custody of the Milan police fell or was pushed from the fourth floor of the police station. Fo's imagination— and his social beliefs— took over from there.

He invented a Fool, or Maniac, who, through some bizarre opportunities, conducts a police procedural on the very officers who were interrogating the anarchist just before his death. They meticulously reconstruct the incident, consuming maybe 75% of the play's two-hour length, until the truth— that is, how accidental the death actually was— is revealed.

A Fool who takes sides

Painstaking though the Fool's cross-examination may be, there's nothing lumbering about the pace of this production. The actors race through their lines, sometimes almost too fast for the audience to let loose its laughter.

To some extent, the velocity is justified. The play is intentionally farcical, which I define as any time an actor steps upon a table to declaim a line rather than merely change a light bulb, and that happens within minutes.

The best procedurals of stage or screen give intimations of suspense and danger, but the methodical questioning itself seems tedious— until the trap is sprung. The Fool is bound by no such discipline as he, by turn, badgers, cajoles, ridicules and sides with the policemen.

Cartoonishness could drain such a play of any interesting meaning, but Curio gets the balance right. Eric Scotolati's Fool is impish, clownish, even roguish— and as relentless as "Dragnet's" Sergeant Friday when he needs to drive home his agenda.

Re-examining Columbus

That agenda sides with the powerless, whom Fo has always championed. As the Nobel committee put it, he "emulates the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden."

All through Fo's career as actor, writer and producer, those in power have hated his works and tried to suppress them. In the 1960s Fo and his wife, Franca Rame, created a kind of "reality" series for Italian TV, starring working-class people under duress from, for example, work-related deaths or illnesses; the program ultimately succumbed to censorship. Their play re-examining Columbus's role in discovering America (including Isabella's expulsion of Arabs and Jews) brought attacks from the right wing and protection from communist militants. A few years later, two plays of theirs that criticized Stalinism were berated by the far left. At one point the Catholic Church urged parishioners to avoid Fo's works.

From MOVE to Occupy Wall Street

The specific comedic mode important to Fo is commedia dell'arte, a theater category that promotes improvisation. In this genre, obsolete references can readily change, giving new currency to the ideas.

For instance, in the 1980s the script was updated to include more recent references. The American president, Fo's Fool points out (referring to Ronald Reagan), falls asleep at press conferences. "Do the people lose confidence in a leader like that?" he asks rhetorically. "No, they trust him even more."

Also: "The police bomb people out of their houses in Philadelphia, and the mayor convinces them it's a new kind of urban development. A nuclear reactor nearly melts down in Harrisburg, but we congratulate ourselves that Chernobyl was worse."

Curio's production, for its part, smoothly inserts references to investment greed, the Occupy Wall Street movement, police brutality on college campuses, a disheartened citizenry and economic dislocation, plus other complaints that governments and institutions pretend to address in order to keep us oblivious rather than informed. Fo's point shines through, as bright as ever.

Compared to Mamet

Why, then, hasn't Fo been performed in Philadelphia for 14 years, while the plays of David Mamet— whose verbal mazes resemble those in Accidental Death— pop up on local stages repeatedly?

Unlike Mamet, Fo has maintained the same principles throughout his career— a shortcoming in some respects. But his targets (corruption, injustice, dishonorable discharge of public responsibility) have never been fully defeated, so they remain entertaining theater fare.

Mamet, conversely, has (in my opinion) evolved from clever, and sometimes reasonable and principled, to absurd. Fo might be heavy-handed, but Mamet is intellectually embarrassing. A Mamet character mouthing off may be intriguing, but Mamet in his own voice is insipid.

It's also possible that a character like Fo's Fool/Maniac is too difficult for Americans to interpret. How can an audience trust a fool's word? Fo's Fool reminds me of Erasmus's In Praise of Folly. Is criticism of the Catholic Church negated, or even reversed, because it's put in the mouth of Folly? Fo's Fool is slippery in the same way, and not always easily understandable to American theater audiences.

By contrast, Mamet's characters are much more based in our everyday reality, so they're immediately more accessible The Curio Theatre Company performed Mamet's Oleanna in the fall of 2010, and the Philadelphia Theatre Company did his Race last winter. A professor, a student, a group of lawyers—when you leave the theater, you can have a lively debate about when each one goes off the rails. But Fo's Fool? It's harder to determine when he's even on the rails, if he ever is.