The unique voice of Dario Fo
The works of Nobel Literature laureate Dario Fo (b 1926) are an amazing gift to actors, directors, producers and everyone else involved in producing his pieces. "An excellently-crafted text that is a joy to perform,' said one of the cast afterwards, and that joy even comes over just by reading the plays. Or, at least as far as I have been able to, because it is a great shame that many of his works are not yet translated into English.

Crammed full of humour from curtain up to the very last line (and even beyond that), there is satire, parody, mime and dance, as well as wonderful opportunities for body language, visual gags, updates of the texts as well as ad-libs - a practice Fo heartily endorses.

Ah but, I hear you chunter, that can so easily degenerate into farce, burlesque or slapstick. Of course it can – and so what? Therein lies the joy of Fo's work: he has the rare ability to disguise the deadliest and most serious political messages with the gloss of comedy at its best. Come to think of it, I cannot bring to mind any another playwright with the same skills, though there has been prose and verse aplenty – think Swift, Pope, Thomas Love Peacock and even Wordsworth.

So the text (in Stuart Hood's excellent translation from 1987) was a gift to the cast. Of course, staging a Fo work, or anything meant to be funny can still fall flat, not least because comedy is so often much harder to bring off than tragedy. You only need to look at the current pathetic tranche of television sitcoms. Timing is of the essence, and clear dialogue, a whip-crack speed and plenty of ‘visuals' are all essential ingredients in the time-honoured recipe. There was a nod to The Keystone Cops and managed to wrest humour out of a pair of glasses, a filing cabinet and a tea tray. But I won't repeat the wicked Rupert Bear joke …

A teamwork achievement
I am delighted to say that LUTG used these ingredients to best advantage in producing a great evening's entertainment. There was superb co-ordination and teamwork among the talented cast, alongside vivid and intelligent direction from PJ Shepherd and the usual first-class backing of the rest of the team. Even the occasional line-fluffings, and impromptu speeches added to the comedic whirlpool. It's not the fact that you lose the plot, get heckled or guffawed at, or forget your lines, it's how you get out of it and move on, ‘in character', that counts. This cast showed exemplary proficiency in this skill.

For me, one of the night's high spots was the Maniac's astonishing performance. One of LUTG's newcomers, Rich Booth from The Potteries is every director's dream; one who can more than deliver the goods, grab the audience by the short and curlies and whisk them into incredulity, insensibility and totally galvanise them in the general anarchic mayhem that constitutes the plot. Groucho Marx has joined the Ministry of Silly Walks.

But Booth did not outshine his peers on stage, for the success of this piece - and much of comedy in general - depends on every word, every movement, every gesture and even every look from each and every member of the cast. Yes, the aptly-named Maniac is the hero of the piece, who generates and propels the squirmings, inane probings and sheer lunacy of the police - and the confused journalist who form the rest of the cast.

Satire - from the nation of culture, chaos and creativity
This piece could only have been written by an Italian. Even Jonathan Swift acknowledged nearly 300 years ago that, along with the Spanish, (really? - Ed) "The Italians … are allowed to have the most Wit of any Nation in Europe.' This British team and their offering would have delighted the aged and irrepressible author, whose anti-establishment views have rung out loud and clear in theatres and public places in Italy since the 1950s.

Oh, and what's the play about, you are wondering. Let's start with police brutality, governmental and judicial cover-ups, monumental incompetence and a corpse. Think WMDs, Deepcut Barracks, the quashed Birmingham Bombings conviction and the present Ukranian government - all rolled into one.

Then add a lunatic, and an unwelcome female journalist who, despite her profession, wants some vague semblance of the truth. And a heady dose of disrespect for all that puts someone else down, or even throws them out of a window. From the fourth floor. Well, you said you wanted the plot …

To cite Swift, again from The Intelligencer (1728), Number III: A Vindication of The Beggars' Opera:

"And, although some Things are too serious, solemn, or sacred to be turned into ridicule, yet the abuses of them are certainly not; since it is allowed, that Corruptions in Religion, Politicks, and Law, may be proper Topicks for this Kind of Satyr.'

A left-wing agitator?
Proper indeed, but there are no sacred cows for Fo. No, not even the present Italian government – and they are not a happy bunch of chappies. Most of them have a paranoid fear of a left-wing plot behind the vast array of corruption charges currently facing the Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi (nickname: il biscone, or the water snake) and his cronies, including the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin. And there is widespread dissatisfaction in Italy even today: click on:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4053809.stm,
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/b71e100e-4276-11d9-8e3c-00000e2511c8.html, http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=587232, and
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4055287.stm to skim what has risen to the top of the iceberg.

But so incensed were the pillars of the community by Fo's sell-out play that one of them has sued the playwright for libel:

This is the very hypocrisy which Fo exposes, because the whole Italian political and economic system, and most of their media and even the world of the arts, are corrupt from top to bottom. Think Mafia, the delayed rebuilding of Venice's La Fenice opera house, Rupert Murdoch, Jeffrey Archer and their like. Ugh. And who dare put up a similar satire in this country today, now that Spitting Images has sadly gone and Tom Sharp's output has sadly declined? Thank God for Private Eye.

This is world-class theatre in a first-rate production which would not have disgraced any professional theatre. The show should have run for a week. Or more, even. It is superbly-crafted drama performed in an exemplary, lunatic manner. I was buzzing for days … and possibly still am.

Copyright © 30 November 2004 Michael Nunn

Postscript: on December 11 2004, Senator Marcello Dell'Utri was convicted by a court in Sicily on various counts including corruption and Mafia association. He was awarded a nine-year gaol sentence, though he did not go to prison immediately as Italian law allowed him to remain free whilst appealing.

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