Playwright: Dario Fo ( American translation by Ron Jenkins and Gloria Pastorino )
Next Theatre at Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes St., Evanston
Phone: ( 847 ) 475-1875; $20-$31
Through May 22
May day! May day! The Next Theatre vessel carrying Nobel Prize-winner Dario Fo's precious cargo of a play, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, is sinking. No matter how hard Next Theatre's cast and crew work or scramble around the stage, they are woefully not up to the task of keeping this brilliant satire of government corruption afloat.
'Tis a pity, since Fo's 1970 play is particularly relevant today. Based upon an actual 1969 incident of Italian police intimidation that lead to the death of an innocent anarchist railway worker accused of a bank bombing, Accidental Death of an Anarchist feels like it was written yesterday. Just substitute the play's anarchist in question with any prisoners involved in the U.S. scandals at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq or at Guantanamo Prison in Cuba.
Many winks to recent events ( like the contested 2000 U.S. Presidential election ) are also thrown in, adding to its timeliness ( though somewhat besmirching the retained Italian setting in Ron Jenkins and Gloria Pastorino's American translation of Fo's original ) . Next Theatre deserves kudos for presenting this Chicago premiere production on one hand, but criticism on the other for producing it without the right crew to do it justice.
Director Linda Gillum's grasp on this slippery satire is tenuous and is continuously stuck on the fast-forward button. It gives the audience little time to pause, think and laugh. More detrimentally, it pushes the actors through an exhaustive workout that is often painful to watch.
You honestly feel for Joe Foust as he flails about the stage in a forced stupor of silliness. As the play's instigating Madman throwing everyone in the police station for a loop, Foust is responsible for generating about 90 percent of the play's laughs.
The problem is that Foust's speedy comic timing and line deliveries mostly fail at their desired effect ( which only seems to make him work exhaustedly harder ) . Fo is partly to blame, since his Madman character cries out for a master comedian on the scale of Robin Williams, Roberto Benigni or Bill Irwin to succeed. Foust only starts winning real laughs when he uses the crutches of slapstick and outrageous costumes ( complete with Hitler mustache and wooden hands ) late in the second act.
The adequate supporting cast also does not help matters along by playing their contempt and outrage at the Madman too broadly. More of Sean Sinitski's grounded and low-key seething anger as the Turtleneck Inspector would have been welcome in his declaiming police force colleagues.
In the right hands, Accidental Death of an Anarchist would be a walloping scream of both comedy and criticism of corrupt governments that are more close-to-home than most people would like to think. Audiences at the Next Theatre no doubt will appreciate Fo's incisive commentary as a modern-day jester, they just won't be laughing along as fully as they could be.
