After Dario Fo, Franca Rame and Tom Basden

ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST

A while ago, an anarchist jumped out of the window of the central police station during an interrogation – and died. The circumstances of this event remain unknown to this day. Now, in that very same station, in that very same interrogation room, sits the local Maniac. A trickster, capable of impersonating different characters within seconds, throwing even the most experienced police officers into confusion.

What started out as yet another arrest turns into a gripping investigation, in which the main character throws the entire station into disarray and reenacts scenarios of the anarchist’s mysterious demise. As they're dealing with the strange incident of the anarchist’s death, the officers at the station are forced to reconsider their own involvement in it. Under the influence of the Maniac’s scene-stealing personality, past situations become very real, even if conjured from thin air.

Written over fifty years ago by Nobel Prize laureate and Italian master of satire Dario Fo, this farce, based on a real event in Milan, reads like a powerful allegory for today’s post-truth era, in which it apparently is not so hard to convince someone of something they’ve never believed. Even more – make them believe they’ve done something they’ve never actually done. Why are we still so fascinated by madmen and outsiders with strong personalities? And why are we willing to march to their beat?