Dario Fo is one of the most popular playwright performers of the 20th century. His play the Accidental Death of an Anarchist is a hilarious satire on police corruption and suspicions involving the government 's collusion in this corruption. The play explicitly critiques the politics of tyranny prevalent in fascist Italy. The growing radicalization of Italian political climate that occurred during that time encouraged Dario Fo to rely on a direct political content. Thus, the play is based on real-life events taking place in 1969. Guiseppe Pinelli, a communist railway worker was alleged to have been involved in the bomb explosion at Milan’s Agricultural Bank. During the bomb incident many people were killed. This was during the time when left-wing …show more content…
Another judge claimed it was suicide. As a result none of the policemen were suspended and on the contrary they got the opportunity to tamper the evidence. In addition, the editor of a newspaper reporting the news received a lawsuit from one of the police officers, Luigi Calabresi, for slander. People thus began to think that it was a political cover up. The character of Inspector Pissani in Dario Fo’s play represents Calabresi or is similar to him, as he shows nervous behavior throughout the …show more content…
The dramatic irony is when the audience knows that the judge to whom the police are crouching is actually the madman, which creates the humor. Through this mistaken identity, someone, who comes of a class lower than the police officials in both wealth and status is able to adopt a power position on stage and by manipulating and ridiculing his social superior, creates a great shift in the power dynamics of the scene. This shift shows the audience how absurd the class system is, that it is built on ignorance and can be infiltrated by a man who is certified as