Accidental Death of an Anarchist: The Sydney Theatre Company
An exploding bomb in Milan’s Bank of Agriculture killed 16 people and injured scores more in late 1969. Police held suspect Giuseppe Pinelli, an anarchist activist, for three days of extrajudicial interrogation before he fell to his death from the fourth floor of police headquarters under suspicious circumstances.
The bombing was seen by many on the political left as a fascist attempt to manipulate public opinion. Three police officers were investigated in relation to Pinelli’s death, which was decreed an accident.
“Scandals are the fertilizer of western democracy,” says playwright Dario Fo in preface to Accidental Death of an Anarchist – his satirical account of the investigation.
Our protagonist, a hyperactive compulsive impersonator of public officials, has been detained for questioning by Inspector Bertozzo, who he manipulates into leaving the office. The neurotic outlaw intercepts phone calls and riffles though documents, stumbling across information enabling him to impersonate a judge leading the Pinelli Inquiry. Affecting to conspire with the officers, he quickly earns their trust and persuades them to meet with an intelligent and skeptical journalist. However, during the interview Bertozzo recognises the imposter and a cunningly improvised mayhem ensues.
Accidental Death of an Anarchist first premiered hours after a commemorative demonstration for the bombing’s anniversary, in which police killed a demonstrator with a tear gas gun fired at close range. The production toured Italy, playing to more than a million patrons.
Fo requests directors and translators take creative license with his scripts, modifying them to better communicate to local audiences. The Sydney Theatre Company contextualised the work’s authoritarian theme to an Australian audience through references to Children Overboard, WMDs, and the recent Kyle and Jackie O scandal. Improvisation and slapstick are staples in Fo’s work, and they were used to great effect.
This production marks the successful unveiling of STC’s new permanent acting ensemble ‘The Residents’, featuring nine young actors (six of who performed). Brett Stiller was an impressively animated manic protagonist and Tahki Saul, a hilarious monobrowed Inspector Pisani. Cameron Goodall’s impeccably agile slapstick provided integral spectacle to highlight the chaotic mosaic, particularly in a matinee playing almost exclusively to a senior grade of a local all-girls high school, shocked into uproarious laughter when his character’s arse was exposed and flaunted for several minutes.
Dario Fo, Italy’s most renowned living playwright, was an architecture student in Milan in the early stages of the Second World War. He became involved in anti-fascist resistance, smuggling Allied soldiers and refugees into Switzerland, before absconding conscription. After the war he completed his studies, but gradually revoked his career in architecture in favour of involvement in the piccoli teatri (Small Theatres) movement. His plays are highly politicised, attacking the gamut of corruption and the right-wing establishment. Fo received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1997.
Accidental Death of an Anarchist
Written by Dario Fo
Directed by Stefo Nantsou
Wharf 2, Pier 4, Hickson Road, Walsh Bay, Sydney NSW
7pm
12, 14, 17, 24, 29 Sept; 1, 2, 3 Oct
90 minutes, no interval
