Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Accidental Death of an Anarchist, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
State Repression and Violence
Revolution vs. Reform
Theater, Truth, and Political Consciousness
Labor, Identity, and Humanity
Summary
Analysis
In another office, the Maniac is wearing his judge’s disguise. He sets down his bag, which has a tape recorder inside, and stands by the window. Inspector Pissani enters the office with a Second Constable—who is played by the same actor as the First Constable, just now with a moustache.
Fo juxtaposes two ploys about identity and disguise: the Second Constable’s moustache is a foil for the disguise that Maniac pulled out of his bag of tricks (but, somehow, the moustache is also even less convincing). Meanwhile, the Maniac’s tape recorder shows that he has come to gather information about the anarchist’s death, and not just to prank the police.
Themes
The Second Constable tells Pissani that a haughty newcomer wants to talk to him. Pissani greets the Maniac, who turns around, notices Pissani rubbing his hands together, and asks if he’s injured or just anxious. The Maniac explains that he once studied under a hypocritical, dishonest Jesuit bishop who was “always stroking himself, just like you.” He notices that the Second Constable looks like the First Constable and asks if they are brothers, then he turns and complains to the play’s stage manager about the production’s meager budget. The stage manager apologizes. The Maniac concludes that Pissani’s handwringing is a symptom of deep-set psychological insecurity and recommends sex as a remedy.
Even though he’s now portraying a judge instead of a psychiatrist, the Maniac still can’t resist psychoanalyzing Pissani. By relating Pissani to the bishop, he mockingly links the two powerful, conservative institutions that dominate Italian public life: the church and the state. He again breaks the fourth wall by pointing out the Constables’ resemblance and insulting the stage manager. And by having one actor play the two Constables, Fo mocks his theater company’s populist bent and shoestring budget, as well as the way state bureaucracies make people interchangeable.
Themes
Next, the Maniac formally introduces himself as Professor Marco Maria Malipiero from the High Court. Pissani and the Second Constable recoil in surprise; Pissani admits that he wasn’t expecting to meet the Magistrate yet. The Constable hangs up the Maniac’s hat and coat (which are really Bertozzo’s), and the Maniac asks him to bring the Superintendent. Pissani suggests they go to the Superintendent’s office, but the Maniac says no, since “the dirty business with the anarchist” happened in this room. Pissani also suggests calling Bertozzo to get the relevant files, but the Maniac says no—he already has them.
The Maniac has been behaving just as absurdly in this scene as he did in the last one—but now that the policemen think he’s a judge, they suddenly take him very seriously. This again reflects Fo’s critique of capitalist bureaucracy, which teaches people to revere authority, not reason. If even the police cannot tell a real judge from an actor, then perhaps the legal principles upholding the judge’s power—like the assumption that judges are wise and benevolent—are mirages. After all, this fits with the Maniac’s claim in the last scene that judges care more about getting power for themselves than about using that power fairly.
Themes
The Superintendent enters, furious, sweaty, and carrying a club. Before Pissani can explain who the Maniac is, the Superintendent starts yelling at Pissani for interrupting him during an important interrogation and for attacking Bertozzo. He also complains that the press is watching the police closely. The Maniac interrupts to describe Pissani’s “sexual crisis” and recommend a good psychiatrist to him, and the Superintendent asks, “Who is this dribbling cretin?” When Pissani explains that it’s Professor Malipiero, the Superintendent shudders and glares at Pissani. The Maniac remarks that the Superintendent’s face is familiar and mentions Calabria (a region in southern Italy). The Superintendent’s eyes light up, and he and the Maniac recite a fascist slogan, salute each other, and sing a fascist youth song together.
The Superintendent has clearly just come from torturing a suspect, which leaves little doubt about whether the police would have done the same to the anarchist. In this way, Fo mocks the police’s obvious responsibility for the man’s death, their flimsy attempts to cover it up, and the political system’s failure to hold them accountable. Meanwhile, in another hilarious, twisted joke, the Maniac recommends his own psychiatric services to Pissani. (Clearly, he’s hoping that Bertozzo won’t tell Pissani about his other profession.) The Superintendent’s reaction to meeting the Maniac is just like Pissani’s: he sees the Maniac for the absurd jester he is, until he learns that the Maniac is (supposedly) his boss. In other words, while he would not tolerate foolishness from a subordinate or civilian, he is all too happy to oblige it from an authority. And when they share the fascist youth song, Fo is again reminding the audience that his contemporary Italian police and military were built by and for Mussolini’s fascist state.
Themes
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The Maniac starts asking the Superintendent about the transcript from the anarchist’s interrogation. He confirms that the Superintendent strongly believed the anarchist participated in two major bombings, and he reads out the line in which the Superintendent wrote that the man jumped out the window when he was “seized by a ‘raptus’”—or a sudden fit of suicidal anxiety. The Maniac asks the policemen to reenact the interrogation, starting with the Superintendent’s entrance. The Superintendent explains that he actually sent his inferior in first; he will portray this man, while the Maniac will act as the anarchist.
The “raptus” story isn’t just Fo taking artistic license: it was the Italian police’s actual explanation for Pinelli’s death. This suggests the Maniac’s first persona, the mad psychiatrist, is actually a kind of foil for the police’s own sham psychology. It’s also significant that the Maniac makes the policemen reenact their interrogation of the anarchist. In other words, his investigation depends on creating a play-within-a-play. So Fo’s actors will reenact the truth about Pinelli’s death—and, in the process, mock the flimsy police cover-up.
Themes
The Superintendent exits the room, re-enters, and accuses the anarchist of “trying to pull the wool over [his] eyes.” The Maniac notes that this isn’t what his transcript says and asks for an exact reenactment. The Superintendent tries again, this time aggressively calling the anarchist a “filthy fox-ridden pansy” and claiming to have “incontrovertible proof” of his involvement in the train station bombing. The Maniac asks if this evidence really exists; “of course not,” the Superintendent replies—this was a trap. Pissani argues that this man must have been responsible because he was “the only anarchist railway worker in Milan,” and the Maniac agrees that “it’s self-evident”—similarly, only a lawyer would bomb a courthouse and only a corpse would bomb the Unknown Soldier’s grave. The Constable enthusiastically agrees.
The Maniac surprises the police by actually expecting them to tell the truth, rather than simply accepting any explanation they come up with (which is what they expect him to do). His strategy underlines the role of acting and storytelling in politics: Fo wants his audiences to see the information that politicians and policemen present to the public as a narrative constructed around particular goals and interests, rather than as unquestionable fact. Clearly, the police chose to interrogate the anarchist because they belong to the right wing and he belonged to the left. In other words, they used the bombing as an excuse to crack down on their political opponents. Thus, Fo suggests that the police and the legal system work together to repress the truth, then cover up this repression to the public, using the language of justice and security.
Themes
The Maniac asks who wrote in the transcript that “the anarchist smiled disbelievingly”—the Superintendent and Second Constable point at Pissani, who takes the blame. The transcript blames the anarchist’s “raptus” on his fear of getting fired, so the Maniac asks who threatened to get him fired. The officers explain that they pulled a trick first—the Constable called Pissani away for a phone call. Pissani walks offstage and loudly practices his next line—but when he returns, he gets it backward: “I’ve just had a rome call from Phone.” Pissani declares that the anarchist’s friend “confessed to planting the bomb in the Milan bank in Rome.”
The policemen’s explanations and finger-pointing clearly have more to do with office politics than a desire to tell the truth or face accountability. They can’t stick to a single narrative—Pissani can’t even remember simple lines. Rather, they constantly rewrite their story, depending on whom it will benefit and how. And despite all the evidence to the contrary, they still act as though the Maniac’s job is to help them create a watertight narrative for their cover-up. (Clearly, most judges care far less about justice and truth than the Maniac does.)
Themes
In his previous testimony, the Superintendent said that the anarchist then smoked one last cigarette and jumped out the window. But now, he reveals that this isn’t true. He admits that the policemen never investigated the anarchist’s alibi—that he was playing cards with friends. The Maniac points out that the Superintendent previously testified that the anarchist was admitting his guilt by jumping out the window, but he later told the radio that there was actually no evidence against the man. On TV, Pissani even called the anarchist “a good bloke.”
The Maniac confronts the policemen about all the contradictions in their investigation. Once again, these details come straight from real life: the police really told the media these shameless, contradictory stories about the anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli. Fo’s audience would have easily seen through the lies and recognized Pinelli’s death as a form of state terrorism (the ideologically-motivated, violent persecution of political opponents by the government).
Themes
The Superintendent admits that he made “a tactical error,” and the Maniac chastises them for detaining the anarchist illegally and telling him so many lies. The Superintendent admits that the story about the friend in Rome was a lie, too. The Maniac says that the Superintendent and Pissani clearly caused the anarchist’s raptus and that he will charge them with instigating the man’s suicide. At the Superintendent and Pissani’s behest, the Constable insists that neither man was present in the interrogation room when the anarchist died.
It's telling that the Superintendent calls the police’s error “tactical.” This shows that he sees the problem in telling the public flimsy, inconsistent stories—but not the problem with lying during an interrogation or murdering an innocent man. In fact, attentive readers and audience members will note that the Superintendent’s regrets are really about his statements on the radio—the one time he actually told the truth.
Themes
The policemen insist that the Maniac look at the corrected “second version” of their statement and pull out a new file. According to this version, the interview with the anarchist only went until 8:00—not midnight, when the anarchist died. Moreover, the police claim, the anarchist hated his friend in Rome, whom he knew to be an undercover agent, and he was actually happy and stress-free by the end of the interview. The Maniac asks where the man’s “raptus” came from, in this case.
Having driven themselves into a corner with their despicable lies, the policemen decide that their only solution is to tell a whole new set of lies. After all, in the bureaucracy where they work, paperwork defines reality: whatever is written down in the file becomes the truth, for all intents and purposes. They hope that this new story will prove more believable, but instead, it exposes a different set of issues and inconsistencies—like the motive and timing of the anarchist’s death, as well as the government’s use of secret agents to undermine left-wing activists.
Themes
Desperate, the Superintendent and Pissani ask what they should say to save themselves. The Maniac says his job is to try and save the police’s reputation by severely punishing them, but they protest that they were only following orders. Their job is to do anything necessary to justify expanding the police’s “repressive powers” and stop “the subhuman filth” from taking over Italy. The Maniac declares that the men have gone too far, runs to open the window, and declares that his advice to them is to jump out of it. He says that their lives are over: “your own ridiculous lies have condemned you!”
Having tried out all the lies they can think of, the police give up and beg the Maniac to save them from accountability. The Maniac cleverly turns this around: he doesn’t attack them for being unjust or dishonest, but rather for imperiling the police force and soiling their own reputations. In other words, rather than appealing to morality, he appeals to the only thing the police respect: self-interest. Meanwhile, the policemen admit what Fo, the Maniac, and much of the audience have probably known all along: the police don’t care about enforcing the nation’s democratic laws or protecting its most vulnerable. Rather, they view their mission as repressing the “subhuman filth”—workers, minorities, the poor, and the left—in order to create a strong, pure, unified, and hierarchical nation where everybody obeys. Of course, this is a typical fascist view of the nation and the state.
Themes
Pissani falls to the ground and starts praying the rosary, then he climbs up onto the windowsill. But the Superintendent grabs his legs as tries to jump out of it. The Superintendent declares that they will write a new, third version of the interrogation. The Maniac agrees to hear it, and the Superintendent pulls the rest of Pissani’s body back into the window.
Pissani’s near-leap is a kind of poetic justice, an eye-for-an-eye retribution for the anarchist’s death. Of course, Pissani doesn’t try to jump because he feels guilty about the anarchist’s death, but rather because he fears that he will lose his job and his family will disown him. In other words, his motives are selfish, not moral. In fact, he doesn’t seem able to understand his moral responsibility for the anarchist’s death at all.
Themes
The men take the story back up at 8:00, after the anarchist smoked his cigarette. At the Maniac’s urging, they agree that they all felt moved by the anarchist’s sadness. The Constable claims to have given the anarchist Juicyfruit gum, and the Superintendent says he left the room—but the other men reject this claim.
The policemen do not realize that the Maniac is testing their limits and mocking their corruption by asking them to repeat an even more absurd version of events. (Audiences should remember that he is tape-recording everything.) Of course, this new story is far more comical than the police’s original one, but only slightly more improbable.
Themes
The Maniac suggests that maybe the Superintendent kindly touched the anarchist on the shoulder, and maybe Pissani patted him on the cheek. Both officers reluctantly agree. The Maniac praises railwaymen, reminds the officers that they all had toy train sets as children, and forces them all to say, “Choo choo. Whoo! Whoo!” He tells them that they must have comforted the anarchist, called him by name, and sung with him in four-part harmony. When the Superintendent calls this story implausible, the Maniac replies that the officers’ only option is to jump out the window. Their stories are “masterpieces of incompetence” with no sense of humanity, he says, and he orders them to sing. They do, and he leads them in an anarchist song about revolution.
The play’s folly reaches new heights: the Maniac forces the policemen to act just as ridiculous as their words have been. In fact, he presents them with a dilemma that resembles the one the state gives ordinary Italian people every day: follow along with the government’s ridiculous lies, or face death and repression. It’s only fitting that this ends with the very agents of that repression singing an anarchist song, which represents the opposite of what they believe. This is farce, foreshadowing, and a political call to action, all at the same time. (It foreshadows the Maniac’s true identity, which the audience will learn in the next act, and it’s Fo’s way of inspiring the audience to join the left-wing resistance.)
Themes
