From L to R: Antonio Ocampo-Guzman, Scott H. Severance, Stephanie Clayman, Elise Audrey Manning. [http://www.thenora.org/]
Nobel Prize-winning playwright Dario Fo is a rare treat to see produced in a professional theatre, especially given his radical revolutionary politics in the Age of Bush. I was thrilled to see this early play of Fo's (1974) for the first time, as I used a monologue from the play's opening many years ago as a young actress. Ironically, I performed my first and only Fo play this past year, his 2005 one-woman play Peace Mom (co-written with his wife Franca Rame) about US peace activist Cindy Sheehan. That more recent play is, of course, decidely NOT a comedy, which is Fo's stock-in-trade and very much in evidence in We Won't Pay, We Won't Pay! , one of his most popular shows.
The play takes us through a whirlwind day or so with two working class couples; an older couple , Antonia and Giovanni, and their younger neighbors and friends Margherita and Luigi. Antonia drags her girlfriend into her apartment one morning to help her stash bags of groceries she, along with dozens of other down-at-the-heel women, stole from their local grocery store as a response to an endless series of inflationary price hikes. Chanting together the play's title, Antonia's euphoria is broken by the realization that her letter-of -the-law husband will kill her if he finds out. So she plots with Margherita to hide the goodies from her husband and the local police, who soon come calling to investigate. From this premise, the play moves quickly into the comedic domains of sympathetically weepy police officers, both women faking pregnancies to hide their booty and the two men eating pet food and bird seed soup to abate their hunger. Much physical comedy and hilarity ensues, with plenty of direct address to the audience, so we are made complicit in everything that happens.
This Nora Theatre production does the play great justice and features strong performances from its company of five. Stephanie Clayman and Scott Severance boast lengthy acting bios in the program, and their experience shows. Clayman's Antonia is tough-as-nails and smart as a whip, never at a loss for words or an idea. Her easy manipulation of her supposedly macho domineering husband is a hoot, as is her dragging of her friend Margherita into the chaos. Severance plays Giovanni as Jackie Gleason in The Honeymooners reborn, although with even more physical comedy! For a large actor he takes an impressive number of falls and shows an endless amount of energy. I also really enjoyed Elise Audrey Manning's work as Margherita as she brought a lovely clown-like quality to the role. Margherita doesn't say a lot, but she must play along with all of Antonia's plotting and con games, and Manning plays her as the childlike innocent who wishes to help her friend but is only barely keeping up with events at hand. She's a delight to watch. The two other male actors, Antonio Ocampo-Guzman (in a number of roles) and Robert Najarian (as Luigi), also fare well here, although they are somewhat overshadowed by the other three.
Director Daniel Gidron keeps everything moving well and makes good use of the black box space in the brand-new Central Square Theatre. The set is simple, as are the costumes and props, but I found the lighting very well-done by long-time Nora designer Scott Pinkney.
When Giovanni speaks to us at the conclusion of the play, as their community moves into resistant action against joblessness, eviction and endless cycles of poverty, he challenges us with the truthful observation that "It's easy to laugh at other people's desperation", a truth that Fo has always known and mined theatrically to his own socio-political ends. However, it is hard to forget that we are a mostly white, middle-aged and middle class audience being preached to in this particular setting. The educator and activist in me wishes this show were made available to young people, high school or middle school age, as it is in them that our revolutionary hopes for the future lie. We oldsters have settled for our creature comforts and are not planning to take to the streets (Obama notwithstanding) anytime too soon. Viva la Revolucion!
