Rick
Roberts, Ins Choi, Kawa Ada, Raquel Duffy & Paul Sun-Hyung Lee. Photo: Cylla von Tiedemann
Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist is
a wild farce, a brilliant political satire and a searing commentary on abuse of
power and public apathy.
Fo wrote the play in 1970 and based it on the
fate of Giuseppe Pinelli, a Milanese railroad worker, who was arrested in
December 1969 on suspicion of being involved in a bomb explosion in a bank.
After three days of brutal interrogation Pinelli, who belonged to an anarchist
group, is supposed to have jumped out of a fourth floor window to his death. A
corrupt investigation followed and Pinelli’s death was ruled a suicide.
The play is a farce but the police characters in
the play and the reporter are apparently thinly disguised representations of
the people involved in the suicide and investigation of the death of Pinelli.
Soulpepper has wisely produced a Canadianized
version of the play. References to places, events, people and politics in 1970
Milan would make little sense to us. Ravi Jain (who also directs the play) and
dramaturge Paula Wing have changed all of that and the play takes place in
Toronto. A large picture of Prime Minister Stephen Harper hangs on a wall and
recent police and political misconduct is dealt with mercilessly.
The central character of the play is a Madman.
He is an impersonator and an impostor who has passed himself off as a
psychiatrist, a bishop, a professor, a surgeon and so on. He is a chameleon who
thinks, moves and talks at breakneck speed. It is a big and difficult role and
Kawa Ada does it with relentless energy and outstanding ability. Without his
prodigious talent and bravura performance, the production would not get off the
ground. He reminded me of Roberto Benigni.
The rest of the cast are satellites of Ada’s
Madman. Oliver Dennis plays the incompetent Inspector Bertezo. Ins Choi plays
also an inspector who is dumb, over-exited and frequently hilarious. Rick
Roberts has the major role of the Chief of Police. He is a classic buffoon in a
farce but with a sharp edge.
Oliver Dennis, Kawa Ada
& Paul Sun-Hyung Lee. Photo: Cylla von Tiedemann
Raquel Duffy plays the inquisitive journalist
who asks intelligent questions about Pinelli’s suicidal jump but as with all
the characters, her questions are turned on their head by the Madman. Paul
Sun-Hyung Lee and Daniel Williams play stupid cops and get the laughs.
Director Jain goes after every farcical move
that he can develop with a sharp eye and dedication. He devises numerous tricks,
uses slapstick liberally and milks every laugh until it squeals. It works most
of the time but Jain does not know when to stop. When you get a big laugh, you
should just go on to the next one. Jain cannot stop repeating the same punch,
kick or pratfall until you feel like screaming “enough already.” There is such
a thing as overdoing it.
Jain and Wing take on Harper and especially the
Toronto police over gross misconduct especially the shooting of Sammy Yatim in
the streetcar and their disgusting behaviour during the G20 meeting. Quite
right.
But they do not stop there. They wrote a long
diatribe against Harper in the play and had Ada step off the stage and out of
character to deliver a lengthy editorial against the Conservative government. No
one in the audience disagreed with the content but it was not an integral part of
the play. It stopped the farce and the comedy to deliver a political message.
Good message; bad place.
Except for the excesses, the production is a
fine example of what an outstanding actor and a fine cast can do with an
utterly wild play that uses farce to attack corruption.
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