Bernadette Hopkins : Set Design
Bread and Roses Theatre Company
Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay!
By Dario Fo.
Directed by Kathleen McCreery
Translated by Lino Pertile. Adapted by Bill Colvill and Robert Walker.
Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay!
By Dario Fo.
Directed by Kathleen McCreery
Translated by Lino Pertile. Adapted by Bill Colvill and Robert Walker.
Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay!” is a saying which has passed into the English vernacular, and is often now used as a political slogan by pressure groups. It originated in the English translated title of a play from 1974, by the Italian playwright Dario Fo. His two plays Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! and an earlier play from 1970, “Accidental Death of an Anarchist”, are Dario Fo’s best-known plays internationally. They were both written in response to specific political needs. Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! is a Marxist political satire; focusing on the problems of economic crisis and job redundancies. Dario Fo turned this depressing scenario into a farcical comedy about the consumer backlash against high prices; a play so entertaining, despite its unlikely premise, that by 1990 it had been performed in 35 countries.
A few months after Dario Fo premiered this absurdist, highly political play, several Italian women were arrested for stealing food from a supermarket. The prosecutor in the case attempted to draw Fo into the trial as an accessory to the thefts because his play featured,as its inciting incident, a mass-theft from a supermarket.The judge sagely absolved Fo of any responsibility for these crimes.
A few months after Dario Fo premiered this absurdist, highly political play, several Italian women were arrested for stealing food from a supermarket. The prosecutor in the case attempted to draw Fo into the trial as an accessory to the thefts because his play featured,as its inciting incident, a mass-theft from a supermarket.The judge sagely absolved Fo of any responsibility for these crimes.
Photography by Rik Walton