Accidental Death of an Anarchist

Dario Fo (1926-2016) is considered one of the most important comedy writers of all time. When he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997, the Swedish Academy wrote that Dario Fo, “following the tradition of medieval jesters mocks the power, restoring dignity to the weak, the poor and the oppressed”.

The satirical comedy The Accidental Death of an Anarchist is one of his best-known works. The plot is based on real events in 1969, associated with the death of Giuseppe Pinelli, a Milanese railwayman, who – accused of anarchist activities – “fell” through the window of a police station during his interrogation. It is also worth mentioning that at the time Italy was experiencing the most violent trade union struggles since the Second World War, and the whole period is known as the “Hot Autumn”.

The central setting of the play is an interrogation room, and the central event is a completely routine interrogation of a suspect. The suspect turns out to be an old acquaintance of the police. Much to the Commissioner’s horror, the suspect declares himself insane. He is said to suffer from “histrionomania”, a disease that drives him to constantly play out various characters. Soon, the interrogation protocol turns upside down and turns into a nightmare –the suspect becomes the fear and dread of two commissioners and the chief of the police station. The suspect introduces himself as the President of the Court of Appeal; the interrogator and the interviewee find themselves in reversed roles. A number of inconsistencies are revealed in relation to the explanation of the cause of death of a railway worker, the world of organised crime, the rampant system of state corruption and a long list of political liquidations are revealed.  

The production will be directed by Gregor Gruden (1980), who in the past seasons successfully directed the first staging of the play Use and Discard Me by Iza Strehar and the first staging of the musical A Better World by Ira Ratej, Ana Duša, Iza Strehar and Luka Jamnik.