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SUPERINTENDENT: I'm delighted to reveal that we have, yes, lots of undercover agents, pretty much everywhere.

JOURNALIST: Now I know you're bluffing, Superintendent.

SUPERINTENDENT: Not at all. In tonight's audience, for example. We have a few of our people in. Do you want to see?

He claps his hands. Voices are heard from various points in the auditorium.

VOICES: Superintendent!/ Over here, sir!/ Yessir?

The Maniac laughs and turns to the audience.

MANIAC: Don't be alarmed, they're drama students. The real undercover ones are trained to sit quietly.

Superintendent / Journalist / Maniac, p. 70

This quote expands on the theme of fear and submission, insinuating that police infiltrators could be anywhere - even at this play. It also demonstrates one of the methods Fo uses to encourage audience members to avoid getting drawn too much into the storyline and instead to think critically about the issues raised.

By having the Superintendent and the Maniac speak directly to the audience, Fo eliminates the invisible "fourth wall" between the actors and the audience. The Maniac's reference to drama students goes one step further, explicitly reminding the audience that they are watching a play.

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..it's not baloney, it's just the usual traps and scams that we in the judiciary use occasionally to remind the police how barbaric and of course illegal those methods are.

Maniac, p. 34

The Inspector and the Superintendent justify their methods of interrogating the anarchist by explaining that they used "a perfectly standard procedure, as practised in every police force, to draw a confession out of the suspect" (24). These methods included engaging in a form of "psychological warfare" in which they invented information that could have caused enough mental anguish to push the anarchist to commit suicide. Rather than merely questioning the morality of such methods, the Maniac demonstrates their effects by using them on the Inspector and the Superintendent. After pointing out the holes in their arguments, he tells them: "Okay, you're probably feeling a little bit depressed right now. So what better time to add that there is damning proof of gross negligence on your part, that you're both dead in the water, and that in an attempt to make the rest of the police look good the Home Office are going to crucify you." (29) He then encourages the Superintendent and the Inspector to jump out the window, which they both admit they seriously considered doing. The Maniac admits to his deception in the quote above, which parallels the Inspector's own justification for using such methods and, in so doing, highlights how corrupt those methods really are.

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I've worked you out: you really do have this acting mania, so you're acting mad but in fact you're saner than I am.

Bertozzo, p. 7

The Maniac is in fact saner than most; his madness is only a theatrical device. It is ironic that the Maniac is labeled "mad" when he is the character most dedicated to revealing the truth. Even the Journalist admits that her primary motivation is to write a good article, whereas the Maniac has no motive beyond the pursuit of truth. It is also ironic, of course, that in order to uncover what really happened, he has to lie and impersonate others. For this reason it may be the world around him that is truly mad.

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I've worked you out: you really do have this acting mania, so you're acting mad but in fact you're saner than I am.

Bertozzo, p. 7

The Maniac is in fact saner than most; his madness is only a theatrical device. It is ironic that the Maniac is labeled "mad" when he is the character most dedicated to revealing the truth. Even the Journalist admits that her primary motivation is to write a good article, whereas the Maniac has no motive beyond the pursuit of truth. It is also ironic, of course, that in order to uncover what really happened, he has to lie and impersonate others. For this reason it may be the world around him that is truly mad.

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They've never tried to cover up these scandals. Which is great! So the public can really vent their outrage and disgust: 'What is this government thinking of!?' 'Arsehole generals!' 'Murderers!' So they get cross, then possibly even angry, but then the bubble bursts. It's like a burp. Then the meal is over.

Maniac, p. 81

This quote expands on Fo's ideas of reform versus revolution and the detriments of catharsis. Scandals let people express their anger, but once expressed, this anger dissipates. Paradoxically, exposing scandals thus serves to maintain the status quo, possibly bringing about a few minor reforms that satisfy the public's desire for a government response while avoiding true revolutionary change.

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Tensions massaged away through the miracle of catharsis, and you journalists are the over-indulged chief masseuses.

Maniac, p. 80

Fo avoided catharsis, in which spectators purge themselves of emotions such as anger or fear through the act of watching a play and letting their emotions flow through them. Here, he implies that people experience catharsis when reading the news as well. News of scandals rile them up, but then the tensions fade as their negative emotions pass. Fo's aim was the opposite of catharsis; he wanted people to engage in debate, challenge ideas, and consider new points of view.

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OK. So let's take a look behind that façade. What do we find? Out of the ten members of the [anarchist's] group, two of them were your own people, two informers, or rather, spies and provocateurs. One was a Rome fascist, well-known to everyone except the aforementioned pathetic group of anarchists, and the other was one of your own officers, disguised as an anarchist.

Journalist, p. 72

The Journalist brings up the practice of infiltration, one of the methods through which the police and the government create a climate of fear. In pretending to act for the left, the infiltrators foment uncertainty through acts of violence. This chaos fractures the radicals by muddying the motives and deeds of the political groups. The police hoped to win the public's support for a strong state, trading democratic principles for the security that a totalitarian government could bring.

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The first scene of Accidental Death of an Anarchist introduces the Maniac, a certified madman with an "acting mania." Bertozzo, a police officer, interviews the Maniac about his latest charge of impersonating a psychiatrist. The Maniac denies any wrongdoing, revealing his quick wit in his responses. When Bertozzo leaves, the Maniac reenters the empty room and looks through Bertozzo's files. The Inspector from the fourth floor calls, looking for Bertozzo; we can infer that a judge is coming to the station to reopen the inquiry about the death of the anarchist. The Maniac pretends Bertozzo is in the room making rude comments about the Inspector and his situation, prompting the Inspector to later punch Bertozzo in the face. Meanwhile, the Maniac decides to impersonate the judge and conduct the inquiry himself.

In the second scene, the Maniac interviews the Inspector and the Superintendent, asking them to recreate what happened the night of the anarchist's death. They told the anarchist they had proof he had planted bombs at the railway station, that his comrade had confessed to planting a bomb at the bank, and that the anarchist's alibi had collapsed. None of these things were actually true. To demonstrate the effects of such "psychological warfare," the Maniac tells the policemen that there is evidence that they were both negligent and that their careers are ruined. He encourages them to jump out the window, as the anarchist had supposedly done, and they both later admit that they seriously considered doing so.

The Maniac admits his deception and offers to help the policemen make their story more coherent. In their second version of events, the anarchist didn't jump until four hours after the interrogation, allowing the men to claim their lies could not have been what caused the anarchist to commit suicide. The Maniac invents details that support this story: the Superintendent put a hand on the anarchist's shoulder, the Inspector pat him on the cheek and told him not to lose heart, and they all sang a song. The policemen object to the fictions, but the Maniac argues that the public would love such a story and they agree to play along.

At the beginning of Act Two, the Maniac says they need to determine what could have happened between 8pm and midnight to cause the anarchist to jump out the window. Instead, however, he points out a number of inconsistencies in the policemen's testimony: the window was open, yet it was midnight in December when the temperature was below zero; the anarchist would have had trouble reaching the window without a running start or a leg-up; and if the constable had really tried to stop him and held onto a shoe, as he said, then the anarchist must have either had three feet or been wearing two shoes on one foot, since witnesses reported he had both shoes on when he landed on the pavement.

The Journalist arrives and the Maniac says he will take on the disguise of the Captain from Forensics to prevent the Journalist from learning that the inquiry has been reopened. His costume includes an eyepatch, a glass eye, and a wooden hand and leg. The journalist brings up additional incriminating evidence against the police. Why did the previous inquiry omit the report on the trajectory taken by the anarchist's body, which would have established whether or not he was alive when he went through the window? Why was an ambulance called for five minutes before the "jump"? Why, too, were there bruises on the back of the dead man's neck? The Maniac explains that there has been a version of events floating around that says that a few minutes before midnight, one of the interrogators lost control of himself and gave the anarchist a whack on the neck. The whack half paralyzed the anarchist, so they called an ambulance. In the meantime, they opened the window and two policemen leaned the anarchist out, hoping the cold air would revive him. However, they accidentally dropped him, each man thinking the other was holding on. The Journalist says the story would explain a lot, including the reason the prosecutor stated the death should be classified as an "accidental death" rather than a suicide. She and the Maniac also discuss the "unreliability" of the witnesses who confirmed the anarchist's alibi.

The play gears up for its climax with the reappearance of Bertozzo, who has brought a copy of the bomb that exploded in the bank. Bertozzo is acquainted with the real Forensics Captain and knows that the Maniac is an imposter. Eventually, he realizes that he is the madman he had been interviewing at the start of the play. The other policemen, thinking Bertozzo will reveal that the Maniac is a judge, kick him and engage in other slapstick humor to try to keep him silent. Bertozzo, meanwhile, tries to dismantle the Maniac's disguise, revealing that there is no reason for the eyepatch or the false leg.

During this time the Journalist continues her questioning, and it comes out that the bomb was very complex - likely the work of the military. She points out that two of the ten members of the anarchist group were spies and asks how the group could have pulled off such an operation while being kept under close scrutiny. The Maniac agrees that the police would have been better off pursuing fascist or paramilitary organizations rather than ragtag anarchist groups. He tells her his beliefs about scandals - they make the public think that the authorities are doing something, but in reality, nothing changes.

The pace quickens as the Maniac switches his disguise to that of Bishop. Bertozzo tries more frantically to reveal the Maniac's identity, and the Inspector and the Superintendent try more frantically to prevent him. Finally, Bertozzo whips out a gun and threatens to shoot. He has the constable handcuff the others to a horizontal bar and orders the Maniac to confess who he really is. The Maniac shares his files and the others are outraged. He grabs the bomb and tells Bertozzo to drop the gun or he will press the detonator and kill them all. When Bertozzo complies, the Maniac reveals a tape recording of their conversations, which he plans to copy and distribute to political entities and the media.

Suddenly the lights go out and the bomb goes off in the courtyard below. When the lights come back on, the Maniac is gone; we can infer he has jumped out the window and fallen to his death. Since neither the journalist nor the handcuffed policemen had anything to do with the Maniac jumping, the Journalist says she may have to rethink her position about the anarchist's jump. She leaves and the policemen take keys out of their pockets and unlock their handcuffs.

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...the scandal would have served its purpose. People say they want real justice... so we fob them off with a slightly less unjust system of justice. Workers howl that they're being flayed like donkeys... so we arrange for the flaying to be a little less severe and slash their howling entitlement, but the exploitation goes on. The workforce would rather not have fatal accidents in the factory... so we make it a teeny bit safer and increase compensation payments to widows. They'd like to see class divisions eliminated... so we do our best to bring the classes marginally closer or, preferably, just make it seem that way.

They want a revolution... and we give them reforms. We're drowning them in reforms. Or promises of reforms, because let's face it, they're not actually going to get anything.

Maniac, pp. 74-5

This quote reflects Fo's own views on revolution versus reform, a hotly debated topic at the time the play was written. Through the Maniac, Fo argues that reform does very little besides calming the populace down and keeping them under control. Scandals, he says, encourage people to clamor for change, but the small changes that do occur do more to increase the standing of those in power than to actually improve the situation. Fo believed that revolution, and with it a complete overthrow of existing institutions, is the way to create real positive change.

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The Superintendent is based on Marcello Guida, the head of police in Milan. While he was not present at Pinelli's death, he took part in the cover-up, denying at first any records of the interrogation and later changing his story. He was also involved in the framing of Pietro Valpreda, another anarchist who was wrongly accused of planting bombs and imprisoned for three years. Guida had been a government official under Mussolini and led a prison camp for anti-fascist activists during World War II. In this version of the play, references to his prison camp activities were changed to activities with mercenaries in Bosnia to add a historical context familiar to a contemporary British audience.

Like the Inspector, the Superintendent believes that the Maniac is a judge investigating what happened the night of the anarchist's death. He reacts defensively when he thinks the Maniac is against him, but is happy to go along with whatever the Maniac says if it will get him out of trouble. He and the Inspector have somewhat interchangeable roles, as both were guilty of questionable practices that contributed to the anarchist's death.

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The Inspector is based closely on commissario Luigi Calabresi, who was commonly believed by leftist organizations to have been directly involved with the death of the anarchist Pino Pinelli. He told the media that the far left was responsible for the Piazza Fontana bombings despite having no proof, led the police raid on the anarchist circle, and invited Pinelli to come to the police station. The Lotta Continua, a far left newspaper, gave him the nickname the "Window-Straddler" due to his supposed penchant for having suspects sit on the windowsill during interrogations and taunting them to jump. Calabresi had known ties with both the CIA and the Republican Right in the United States and had become a target of hatred. In his libel suit against the editor of the Lotta Continua, the focus of the court case shifted to whether Calabresi had caused the anarchist's death. The case had just begun proceedings when the play originally premiered.

In the play, the Inspector believes that the Maniac is a judge who has come to reopen the inquiry into the death of the anarchist. He tries to prove his innocence, but ends up incriminating himself through the Maniac's clever questioning. Fo satirizes Calabresi mercilessly, using the Maniac to point out the inconsistencies in his story. He also depicts him as having a temper and lacking a sense of humor, punching Bertozzo in the face when he thinks he has ridiculed him.

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The constables are foolish bystanders, reminiscent of the bumbling, incompetent policemen of detective stories. They follow orders immediately and agree with whatever anyone says. By depicting the constables as such simple- and single-minded people, Fo pokes fun at the hierarchy of the police bureaucracy.

Though there were four constables in the office at the time of Pinelli's death, there is no direct link to any of the real-life constables to the characters in the play.

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The Maniac is the pivotal character in the play. While he has no counterpart in real life, he speaks the majority of the lines and was played by Fo himself in the original staging. It is through the Maniac that Fo satirizes the police, reveals the inconsistencies in their stories, demonstrates the questionable nature of their interrogation techniques, and presents counter-information to what was being presented about the case in the press.

The Maniac has been diagnosed with an "acting mania" and has been charged twelve times for impersonation, most recently while pretending to be a psychiatrist. He uses his talents to investigate what really happened the night of the anarchist's death, adopting the persona first of a judge reopening the inquiry, then a forensics expert, and finally a bishop. Through the Maniac, Fo insinuates that police spies commonly impersonated members of political groups. The Maniac's constantly shifting persona and hyperactive nature may also contribute to the "alienation effect," preventing audience members to become so absorbed in the play that they fail to think critically about its meaning.

The character of the Maniac has its roots in the Italian theatre tradition of commedia dell'arte, popular from the mid-16th to the mid-18th centuries. In commedia dell'arte, the actors were at the heart of the playmaking process, improvising lines rather than blindly following a script. Plots consisted primarily of stock characters rather than individuals, and actors usually wore masks. The most celebrated character was the Harlequin, or trickster, most commonly seen with a long, hooked nose, a half-mask over his eyes and mouth, and a multicolored costume. Fo's updated version of the Harlequin is devious, irreverent, and a free spirit. He contradicts convention and owes loyalty to none. As a trickster, the Maniac deceives the policemen by interrogating and lying to them, just as they had done to the anarchist. Afterwards he leads them to believe he is on their side, only to later agree with the Journalist in her insinuations of their culpability. At times he plays the role of a clown, convincing the policemen to join him in a rousing song or accidentally swallowing his glass eye. While the Maniac is certifiably insane, the character exposes the true madness of this tumultuous time in Italy's history.

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Bertozzo is the amalgam of several real-life police officers. In Italy, jokes about the carabinieri, one of the three police forces, are common; Bertozzo fits the stereotype that is typically the target of these jokes.

We meet Bertozzo at the beginning of the play as he interviews the Maniac regarding his latest impersonation. His lines are humorless and serve as a means for the Maniac to display his own wit. He is absent for the majority of the "inquiry" the Maniac conducts with the Inspector and the Superintendent but returns as the play approaches its climax, bringing in a replica of a bomb destroyed by the police. He recognizes the Maniac and tries to reveal his true identity to the others, but the Superintendent and the Inspector, thinking Bertozzo will admit that the Maniac is a judge to the Journalist, do whatever they can to silence him.

Throughout the play, Bertozzo is the butt of jokes and recipient of mocking laughter and physical abuse. This contributes to the play's slapstick humor, while reminding the audience of the abuse the anarchist likely endured during his interrogation.

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The event took place in Milan, Italy, in December 1969, at the end of a tumultuous decade. The two main political parties in Italy at the time were the Christian Democrats and the Italian Communists, with underground forces conspiring to keep the Communists out of government, or to introduce a non-democratic system (possibly fascist or totalitarian). Two failed attempts at a coup d'etat in 1964 and 1970 added to the sense of unease among the populace. Activists reacted by demanding new politics and advocating for revolution, with students ready to join forces with striking trade unionists. Neo-fascists, meanwhile, began carrying out terrorist attacks blamed on left-wing groups, with the aim of creating a climate of fear in which the public would support a powerful totalitarian regime in order to stop the killing. The "attack on the twenty-fifth" (24) mentioned by the Superintendent in the play refers to two bombings on April 25, 1969 at the Milan Exhibition Center and the railway station, both blamed on left-wing organizations. By blaming the left, this "strategy of tension" was also designed to halt the growth of strength of the working class.

On December 12, 1969, a bomb went off in the Banca dell'Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana, located in the center of Milan. 16 people were killed and another 90 were injured. An hour earlier, a bag of explosives had been found at a different bank in Milan, but it did not detonate; the police blew it up rather than disarming it, thus destroying a key piece of evidence. Nobody knows the full truth of what happened that day, but newspapers reported that anarchist groups were responsible. Giuseppe (Pino) Pinelli was one of the first anarchists to be taken in for questioning. He was detained for three days before "falling" out of a fourth-floor window to his death around midnight on December 15. Another anarchist, ballet dancer Pietro Valpreda, was put in jail for three years for his supposed complicity. Neither Pinelli nor Valpreda were actually involved in the attacks, nor, as far as we know, were any members of anarchist groups.

Inspector Luigi Calabresi was in charge of Pinelli's interrogation. Calabresi, whom many suspected of being sympathetic to the fascists, had blamed the Piazza Fontana bombings on "left-wing extremists" and was unlikely to have been impartial to Pinelli. There were five additional officers in Calabresi's office when Pinelli died, as well as a group of journalists in the courtyard below. An autopsy revealed that Pinelli had bruises on his neck. There were massive inconsistencies between the various reports of what happened that night, a fact Fo capitalizes on throughout the play.

A leftist newspaper called the Lotta Continua blamed Calabresi for Pinelli's death, coining or at least popularizing his nickname, "Officer Window-Straddler." Calabresi sued the Lotta Continua and its editor, Pio Baldelli, for criminal libel. The case was still ongoing two months later when Accidental Death of an Anarchist initially premiered on December 10, 1970, one year after Pinelli's death. The script was adapted for each performance to take into account new developments. The trial was contentious, centering more on the death of Pinelli than Baldelli's libel. At one point Calabresi's lawyer challenged the judge, who was removed from the case.

On May 17, 1972, three days after his bodyguard was declared unnecessary, Calabresi was murdered. Nobody was arrested at the time, but in 1988 a man named Leonardo Marino claimed he had driven Calabresi's killers and named the four supposedly guilty men. All had been members of the Lotta Continua in the 1970s. Fo has continued to be interested in the case and wrote Free Marino! Marino is Innocent! in 1998 to satirize Marino's evidence.

Source From: http://www.gradesaver.com/accidental-death-of-an-anarchist

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Quotes and Devices in Act one and the Modest Proposal

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Quotes and Devices in Act one and the Modest Proposal

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Satirical deives from Accidental Death of and Anarchist and A Modest Proposal 