ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST
One doesn’t need to stick to such extreme examples to consider the question. In Dario Fo’s 1970 satire Accidental Death of an Anarchist the attempt by law-enforcement officers to cover up a case of deadly police brutality is the starting point for a consideration of anarchy in less violent contexts; the updated production concocted by New Crime Productions pointedly emphasizes that while specific political conditions may vary from country to country and year to year, the conflict between persons with anarchic tendencies and persons with fascist tendencies–a line that can get blurred–is universal. Today, an antiwar demonstrator who clogs street traffic to draw attention to his point might be considered an anarchist–or a 14-year-old who refuses to accede to his teacher’s demand that he alter the antiwar sentiments in a letter he typed for typing class (and gets an F because of it–see Richard Roeper’s Sun-Times column of February 25). Others might describe as an anarchist the typing teacher who tosses the student an F–or a leader who deliberately uses insult and distortion to escalate a diplomatically solvable situation into a violent one. Next to these folks, that chaotic clown Harpo Marx was a model of restraint.
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So is the marvelous lead performance of Greg Sporleder as the mad Fool who, after being arrested for impersonating a psychiatrist, turns the tables on his captors and pretends to be a high-ranking judge investigating the anarchist’s death. (“I would never be a lawyer,” crows the Fool. “I don’t like to defend people; that’s a passive occupation.”) Tall and gangly, with manically bulging red eyes and a puppetlike body that seems to move three ways at once, Sporleder’s Harlequin–the sassy and subversive clown who undermines his stupid superiors–suggests both Dwight Frye’s insane Renfield in Dracula and Danny Kaye as the make-believe official in The Government Inspector, whose plot is echoed in Fo’s satire of the hypocrisy and gullibility of people in power. Sporleder is ably supported by Bill Cusack as the smug police chief, David Sinaiko as an apoplectic lower-echelon officer, and Chris Reed, sporting a sout’west-side accent as a preening macho cop (the equivalent of the bragging military officer in the commedia dell’arte scenarios). Polly Noonan, employing the commedia archetype of the vain, whiny ingenue, is the aggressive reporter who tries to get the real story of the coverup but gets wrapped up in simpleminded scandalmongering. Working together with both remarkable physical control and unfettered playfulness, the actors keep things moving at a mostly uproarious pace; politics aside, Accidental Death of an Anarchist is just plain fun. But the unflagging sense of method in Sporleder’s madness and the savage satire of Fo’s unsubtle script always keep the audience aware of the horror as well as the humor in the play–and of the realities reflected in its lampooning.
