Download Elizabeth, Almost by Chance a Woman

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Compiled by Heidi Irvine.
The activities and resources contained in this document are designed as the starting point for
educators in developing more comprehensive lessons for this production. Heidi Irvine is seconded to
Queensland Theatre Company from Education Queensland as an Education Liaison Officer. You can
contact Heidi on [email protected]
Production Sponsor
© Copyright protects this Education Resource.
Except for purposes permitted by the Copyright Act, reproduction by whatever means is prohibited.
However, limited photocopying for classroom use only is permitted by educational institutions.
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Contents
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At the theatre – Some basic etiquette
The fine print – Details about the production
In the circle – Practical classroom activities
Points of view – Selected articles
Tasks – Ideas for Forming, Presenting & Responding
Behind the Scenes – from the Director
Resources – A range of online resources
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Page 4
Page 5
Page 10
Page 15
Page 18
Page 20
At the Theatre
We’d like to welcome you to the experience of attending a live performance – while
we know you get all the etiquette stuff, here’s a reminder of some simple information
you can pass on to your students.
1. We ask you to get involved in the performances by applauding and laughing
at appropriate moments. If you have a question – ask your teacher at the
interval/end of the show or one of the cast, if you have a chance for a
Question & Answer session.
2. Food or drink is not permitted in the theatre
3. Live theatre is different to TV – the actors on stage can hear and see you and
there are other members of the audience to think about. If you need to leave
the performance for any reason, please ensure this is done quickly and quietly
and at an appropriate break in the action
4. Switching your phone to silent isn’t the only thing to do. Please ensure that
you switch off your mobile phone and leave it in your bag before the
performance begins. The glow of the iPhone screen is obvious to others and is
very distracting!
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The fine print
Location: Powerhouse Theatre, 26 May – 24 June.
Writer: Dario Fo
(Freely adapted and translated by Luke Devenish and Louise Fox)
Cast: Carol Burns, Eugene Gilfedder, Sarah Kennedy, Jason Klarwein, Dash
Kruck
In the final day of her life, an ailing Elizabeth I clings desperately to her throne and
her sanity. It has been eleven days since she last slept and she rightly fears that if
she allows herself to bed she may not rise again.
Lascivious, neurotic and narcissistic, the once stoic ruler is now stark raving mad. Her
mind conjures up vivid memories and grandly paranoid delusions, first and foremost
that William Shakespeare has plagiarised the events of her life in each of his famous
plays. Suddenly, her boudoir transforms into The Globe Theatre, where the last few
hours of her reign are played out in stratospherically high drama.
Not only must Her Royal Redness stave off pesky coups and conspiracies, she’s
intermittently haunted by the headless ghost of her Scottish sister Mary. To make
matters even worse, hunky heartbreaker Robert Essex is due any minute and Her
Majesty is in no condition to receive guests. But that’s nothing a bit of leech-osuction and a bee sting booblift won’t fix… Drawing on all the energy, spirit and
spontaneity of original 16th century Commedia dell’Arte, Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo
(Accidental Death of an Anarchist) offers up a modern stage masterpiece which
transcends language and culture. Elizabeth, Almost by Chance a Woman is in equal
parts a bawdy burlesque, a riotous nose-thumbing of authority, and a surprisingly
touching insight into the challenges of womanhood.
Monarch. Maiden. Superfreak. It’s not easy being Queen.
Warnings: Frequent coarse language, low level violence, sexual overtones and
references to sex
Translated from QUASI PER CASO UNA DONNA: ELISABETTA. This adaptation was
commissioned and first produced by the Malthouse Theatre at the Merlyn Theatre on
7 April 2010
Creatives
Director: Wesley Enoch
Designer: Simone Romaniuk
Lighting Designer: David Walters
Sound Designer (Musical Director): John Rodgers
Clowning/Slapstick Consultant: Scott Witt
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In the circle – Practical classroom activities
Here we will explore a range of ways to start – from the very basic warm up activity
through to questions and ways to provoke discussion about the performance.
Have students work with the following practical Commedia based activities. Here is a
lesson suggestion on how to approach introducing the concepts of Commedia and
physical comedic performance.
Introduction
Objectives
Activity 1
Activity 2
Activity 3
The purpose of this lesson is to become familiar with (and
experiment with) the Commedia style.
- share responses with other students
- listen to the ideas of others
- work cooperatively in groups of all sizes to plan and participate
in drama experiences
- practice leadership of small and large groups
- accept the leadership of others in small and large groups
Warm Up:
"Everybody's It"
This is a good energy boosting game of tag. Everybody is it all at
the same time. You yell 'go' and then the students try to tag others
while not being tagged themselves. Tagging can only happen on
the back. It works best in a fairly large, yet contained area.
* Variation: when tagging call out the name of an animal, the
person tagged must stand and make the animal noise until "freed"
by a hug. (5 min.)
Warm Up:
"Yes, Let's"
This game encourages students to listen and accept suggestions.
Students begin by walking about the room in a random pattern. At
any point, anyone can call out an instruction -"Let's all crow like
roosters", and everyone must respond "Yes, Let's!" and then must
continue crowing until a new instruction is called. Let the game
continue with lots of suggestions. (5 - 8 min.)
Developing Skills:
Have students create their own Commedia type scenes using the
characters in modern settings. Use a simple costume piece to
denote characters. Use the same small groups of three to five from
the previous assignment. Select from the handout below to choose
characters and improvisational scenarios. Students can explore
more about the characters by researching, however at this stage, it
might be useful to work with simplified ideas of the characters, so
students can work more on developing scenario and relationships.
A handout about is also included about developing a scenario
structure, which might be useful. (20 - 30 min.)
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Introducing Commedia: The Characters
Commedia Stock Characters
In Commedia, you will find a series of stock characters. Each of these characters are
archetypes, with particular commonalities to them all. Each actor, however, will find
different nuances and a life of their own.
Arlecchino is an acrobat and a wit, childlike and amorous.
Brighella, Arlecchino's crony, was more roguish and sophisticated, a cowardly
villain who would do anything for money.
Il Capitano (the captain) was a caricature of the professional soldier—bold,
swaggering, and cowardly.
Il Dottore (the doctor) was a caricature of learning—pompous and fraudulent.
Pantalone was a caricature of the Venetian merchant, rich and retired, mean and
miserly, with a young wife or an adventurous daughter.
Pedrolino was a white–faced, moon–struck dreamer and the forerunner of
today's clown.
Pulcinella, as seen in the English Punch and Judy shows, was a dwarfish
humpback with a crooked nose, the cruel bachelor who chased pretty girls.
Scarramuccia, dressed in black and carrying a pointed sword, was the Robin
Hood of his day.
The handsome Inamorato (the lover) went by many names. He wore no mask
and had to be eloquent.
The Inamorata was his female counterpart. Her servant, usually called
Columbina, was the beloved of Arlecchino. Witty, bright, and given to intrigue,
she developed into such characters as Harlequine and Pierrette.
La Ruffiana was an old woman, either the mother or a village gossip, who
thwarted the lovers.
Cantarina and Ballerina often took part in the comedy, but for the most part their
job was to sing, dance, or play music.
Commedia Scenario Ideas
A local restaurant, customers and employees, trying to place an order - no one
has any brains at all.
At the scene of an minor auto accident, arguing over who is to blame, the police
arrive.
A scene about love and mistaken identity.
A scene about greed and trickery.
At a work site on a highway project, in which no work ever seems to get
accomplished.
At a political rally, trying to win votes and gather donations for the party.
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Developing a Scenario: The Basic Structure
1) Exposition: Setting the scene. The writer introduces the characters and
setting, providing description and background.
2) Rising Action: After an “inciting incident” which disrupts the “normalcy” of the
world of the play, the story builds and gets more exciting.
3) Climax: The moment of greatest tension in a story. This is often the most
exciting event. It is the event that the rising action builds to and that the
falling action follows.
4) Falling Action: Events happen as a result of the climax and we know that the
story will soon end. The falling action ends with the resolution in which
someone solves the main problem/conflict of the story.
5) Denouement: The ending. At this point, any remaining secrets, questions or
mysteries are solved by the characters or explained by the author. Sometimes
the author leaves us to think about the theme or future possibilities for the
characters. Normalcy is (somewhat) restored.
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Here is another suggested series of lessons/activities you can work through using
Commedia techniques.
Focus
Students learn to…
A student
manipulates the
elements of drama to
create belief, clarity
and tension in
character, role,
situation and action
A student applies
acting and
performance
techniques
expressively and
collaboratively to
communicate
dramatic meaning
Stock Character - Il
Capitano
A student explores,
structures and
refines ideas using
Learning Experiences
Develop sophisticated
physicalisation techniques
appropriate to the
Commedia style.
Develop sophisticated
vocal techniques.
Explore movement
techniques in relationship
to fully realised
characters.
Manipulate elements of
drama in a specified
dramatic form.
Explore and reveal aspects
of role/character in
dramatic situations.
Explore role/character
through play building.
Explore and reveal aspects
of role in dramatic
situation.
Stretches and strenuous
warm-ups via tag games
or teacher guided
movement sequences.
Control of exaggeration,
slow motion and fast
activities.
Gibberish exercises.
Silent movie – watch a
variety students improvise
own scenarios and
perform with music –
created by themselves or
published.
Improvise some
stereotypical roles provide
via teacher/student
created cards.
Create scenes using
slapstick, stereotyped
roles and make the
obvious link to Commedia.
Use breath and voice as
Allow students to create a
key instruments of
response with the neutral
performance.
masks that explore status
Use movement and
- subservient and
stillness to enhance
dominant master/servant
performance.
and adding various
Create sub-text and
emotional overlays.
emotional complexity in
Divide class into groups
performance.
and have students create
Explore the dynamics of
own situations - firstly
without sound and then
timing in performance.
Apply acting techniques to
add in dialogue.
create a stock character.
Research and apply
concepts of relevant
drama practitioners and
their works.
Explore the nature of
Build on research already
done by students introduce Il Capitano who
is a stock character to
place him in context.
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dramatic forms,
performance styles,
dramatic techniques,
theatrical
conventions and
technologies
different theatre
companies and their
dramatic function in
relationship to an
audience.
Manipulate a variety of
scene and plot structures
in order to structure
particular dramatic forms.
Introduce and workshop
his movement which is
engaging and flamboyant
and provide his
characteristics: politic,
total coward, really
courageous persona however not in reality.
About Dario Fo
Dario Fo was born in San Giano, a small town around Lake Maggiore, on 24 March
1926. His father was a railroad worker and part-time actor, and his mother came
from a peasant family. As a young man he helped his father smuggle escaped Allied
soldiers and Jewish scientists to Switzerland during World War II. Fo was educated
at the Brera Art Academy in Milan and studied architecture at the Polytechnic. In
1953 he married actress Franca Rame. Together they founded several theatre
companies and she collaborated on many of his plays. In 1973, Rame was
kidnapped, tortured, and raped by a group of fascists to punish them for their
political activism. As members of the Communist Party they were refused admittance
into the United States twice. On one occasion it was because Fo spoke out against
the Vietnam War.
Fo's genre is drama and he is known for his satirical plays. Forceful, wittily anarchic,
and often disturbing, his work was impeded by Italian censorship before 1962. One
of his most famous works is Accidental Death of an Anarchist (1970). Another of his
works, Archangels Don't Play Pinball, became the greatest box-office hit in Italian
theatre. Fo has written over 70 plays, among them Mistero Buffo (1969), The Pope
And The Witch (1989), The Devil With Boobs (1997), Low Pay? Don’t Pay! (2008),
Francis, The Holy Jester (2009) and his works have been translated into more than
30 languages.
Fo was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997.
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Points of view
Here are a few articles for students to read, which look at Dario Fo and his continued
foray into political satire.
Dario Fo: An Italian Playwright Cuts Prime Minister Down to Size
Dec. 30, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/31/arts/theater/31FO.html
Dario Fo's scathing satires on authority and establishment have carried the
playwright to the heights of Italian letters, a pinnacle capped with a Nobel Prize. But
in his new play he aims at his favourite target, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, from
a considerably more modest stature. From about two and a half feet tall, to be exact.
Mr. Fo recently spent more than half of a sold-out performance here (New York) of
his play "The Two-Headed Anomaly" portraying Mr. Berlusconi as a sort of tyrannical
dwarf. "We're not that cruel towards him," said Mr. Fo, who acts in the play and is
still limber at 77. "We're just saying he's a little bit of a dwarf, as if he were a
puppet." To create the effect Mr. Fo stood in a trench behind the main stage, his arms
hidden in short pinstripe pants and his hands stuffed into shiny shoes.
But if his tap-dancing across the stage like a liberated ventriloquist's dummy wasn't
absurd enough, the show's premise supplied an even more surreal twist. At the
beginning of the loosely scripted, often improvised left-wing rant against the
conservative prime minister, it is explained that Mr. Berlusconi has had emergency
surgery in which a portion of the brain of Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, has
been grafted to his own. This occurs after Chechen terrorists gun down the two
leaders as they prepare for bed by practicing karate in matching kimonos.
The spoof was inspired by the friendship between the leaders, who tend to wear
matching outfits during summit meetings (furry hats in Russian dachas and linen
pants in Sardinian villas). Mr. Berlusconi infuriated many European politicians last
month at a news conference in Italy by defending Mr. Putin's actions against
separatists in Chechnya. Besides what Mr. Fo refers to on stage as the show's Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde gag, complete with references to Mr. Berlusconi's new taste for
vodka and K.G.B. flashbacks, the show highlights a very real concern in
contemporary Italian cultural life.
Critics like Mr. Fo fear that Mr. Berlusconi's political power and vast cultural
influence; he is a media baron and the country's richest person - create a conflict of
interest that is a breeding ground for censorship. "It's a difficult time for satire," he
said in his dressing room before the show. "Berlusconi has his hands in everything.
Satire has to have tragedy at its base. Well Italy now is really tragic. We've never
been so low."
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Neither has Mr. Berlusconi, for that matter, and he is not at all pleased about his
diminutive depiction in the play. "There is an Italian comedian who performs from
inside the trench," he said in an interview, "to create the impression of a `devilish
dwarf. I don't think I'm a dwarf," he said. "The new generation eats better and does
more sports than me, but I'm the average Italian."
Mr. Berlusconi also argued that the left "continually attacks the government and the
prime minister in particular." Mr. Fo countered that he and other satirists were the
real victims. He said that members of Mr. Berlusconi's political party had tried to get a
text of The Two-Headed Anomaly, which was written and performed here with his
wife and longtime collaborator, Franca Rame. "Before they knew it was even about
Berlusconi," Mr. Fo said.
Mr. Fo said that he had refused to hand the script over to what he called a politically
motivated board of directors at a Milan theatre, although he said the play's
production had not been impeded in any way. But officials close to Mr. Berlusconi
say that even the accusation that the prime minister meddled at all is ludicrous, and
they point out that there is a good deal of satire about Mr. Berlusconi in Italy. The
front pages of Italian newspapers routinely feature cartoons that lash out and make
fun of the prime minister. Satirical news programs on Italian television regularly give
him starring roles.
But critics charge that there are many outlets where satire does not surface. In recent
weeks, the Italian president refused to sign into law a bill passed by Mr. Berlusconi's
allies in Parliament that could have expanded the prime minister's media holdings in
the future, while state television suspended programs by some satirists after Mr.
Berlusconi's media company called the show political propaganda and threatened to
sue.
"They didn't just censor them, they kicked them off," Mr. Fo said. Mr. Berlusconi's
family owns major publishing and film distribution companies, newspapers and three
out of the country's seven national television channels. Three of the other channels
are run by the government. For all its grave accusations, "The Two-Headed Anomaly"
is an almost vaudevillian romp. The show consists largely of short, fat and bald jokes
about the prime minister and his councillors. It stages bawdy attacks not only on Mr.
Berlusconi's politics but also on his personal life and his ethics.
But that is exactly what Mr. Fo's fans expect and want. At one night's performance, in
the theatre’s lobby vendors sold about 5,000 euros' worth (about $6,000) of Dario Fo
paraphernalia, including his books, paintings and videotapes. The Pope and the
Witch," a satire on another preferred target of Mr. Fo's, sold briskly, but materials
attacking Mr. Berlusconi were the best sellers. At the beginning of the show, Ms.
Rame told the audience that the couple had planned to rest and peacefully recover
from illnesses together, but that new laws postponing Mr. Berlusconi's corruption
trials and expanding his business interests had brought them back. "We had no
choice but to get back on stage," she said. The packed house of 1,400 at that
performance appeared thankful that they did. The three-hour show sold out during
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its one-week run in Rome and is hitting the road throughout Italy for about 50 more
performances. But some in the audience questioned whether that was even
necessary.
"At this point the reality has become satire," said Augusto Derrone, 59. "Italy is
always more surreal, and there is no room for satire to do its job."
Dario Fo: Fears of a clown
Aug. 28, 2007
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/dario-fo-fears-ofa-clown-463307.html
Who said a clown can’t be mayor of a great city? Two years ago, when Dario Fo (the
Nobel Prize-winning jester and satirist) launched a campaign to become mayor of
Milan, one of his most vocal supporters was London’s mayor, Ken Livingstone.
“I hear now in the papers of Milan that they say this man is too utopian, he is an
idealist, he is lovely, but it will never work,” Livingstone said at one of Fo’s rallies.
“That isn’t true. A journalist said to me, ‘Do they talk about Milan in London?’ I said,
‘If you elect Dario Fo, the whole world will talk about Milan. You have a chance. Take
it!’” Fo’s campaign was serious, not a Screaming Lord Sutch-like piece of tomfoolery.
Aged 79 at the time he became a candidate, he said he wanted to “dedicate my last
years to my city, trying to make it smile once again”.
Fo’s candidacy didn’t get far; he won a little less than 25 per cent of the vote to
choose the centre left’s candidate. Although the people warmed to him, the left-wing
parties opted to support the former prefect of the city, Bruno Ferrante. The media
didn’t pay much attention either.
The story of Fo’s campaign is told in a new documentary, I Am Not a Moderate (Fo’s
campaign slogan), which premiered at the Locarno Festival this summer. The title is
telling. Fo doesn’t do moderation. For more than 50 years, he has been scandalising
and provoking the authorities. One might have expected the Nobel Prize for Literature
that came his way in 1997 to make him more accepted in Italy, but he annoys
contemporary politicians just as much as he did their grandfathers in the 1950s.
Silvio Berlusconi detests him. Three years ago, Berlusconi’s party, Forza Italia, sued
Fo for defamation after performances of his satirical play, The Two-Headed Anomaly,
a broad farce that started from the premise that part of Vladimir Putin’s brain was
transplanted into Berlusconi’s head.
That tussle was another to add to all the battles the clown and satirist has fought.
His targets have ranged from the Catholic Church to the Mafia, from the US
government (which once barred him from the USA) to the Italian Communist Party,
from anti-abortionists to the Chinese government.
On a hot August afternoon in Locarno, where he has come to support the premiere of
the new film, Fo explains being attacked by powerful figures has never bothered
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him. “It is normal,” he says serenely. “It proves that you are doing good.” When I ask
if he’s ever felt that he would like to lead a quieter life, he roars with laughter. “I
don’t want to be an old man, looking at the sunset. That’s a hateful idea, even if it is
romantic. I prefer to be on the bank with the people, explaining to them what sunset
is.”
Fo, a surprisingly imposing figure, learnt his storytelling technique from the old folk
and craftsmen in the town on Lake Maggiore where he was born and raised. When
he won his Nobel Prize, he credited them with teaching him the “art of spinning
fantastic yarns” that would fill listeners with laughter but then make them pause as
they recognised the tragic undertow.
In essence, this is what his career has been built on – rowdy comic tales and satires
in the Commedia dell’Arte tradition, always with bite, sarcasm and irony. The Nobel
Committee suggested that he followed in the tradition of “the jesters of the Middle
Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden”.
In person, Fo is a graver, more melancholy figure than you might expect. Through an
interpreter, he gives concise, earnest answers to questions about the mayoral race.
He doesn’t hide his dismay at what has happened in his beloved Milan under its
current mayor, Letizia Moratti, formerly a minister in Berlusconi’s cabinets. “She
hasn’t solved any problems,” he laments of Milan’s first female mayor, adding that
her programme wasn’t “based on truth”.
You can’t help but wonder how Fo keeps his optimism. After all, 50 years of his gibes
don’t appear to have done much to change Italian politics. As a teenager, he was
active in the anti-Mussolini resistance. Today, he is still fighting corruption in
European politics. He says that he’s fearful that further figures in the mould of Stalin,
Mussolini and Hitler will emerge on the political stage, albeit in new guises.
When he received his Nobel Prize, he gave a droll but melancholy lecture entitled
Against Jesters Who Defame and Insult, in which he lamented the ignorance of
young people. He recalled that he and his wife Franca Rame (the actress to whom he
has been married since 1954) had been giving seminars at universities, but when
they mentioned the 1993 massacre at Sivas in Turkey, they encountered only blank
faces.
“We told them about the proceedings now in course in Turkey against the accused
culprits of the massacre in Sivas,” Fo says. “Thirty-seven of the country’s foremost
democratic intellectuals, meeting to celebrate the memory of a famous medieval
jester of the Ottoman period, were burned alive in the dark of the night, trapped
inside their hotel. The fire was the handiwork of a group of fanatical fundamentalists
that enjoyed protection from elements within the government itself. In one night, 37
of the country’s most celebrated artists, writers, directors, actors and Kurdish dancers
were erased from this earth.”
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Not only were the students ignorant of the massacre; so were their teachers. The
idea that such an atrocity could take place seemingly without anyone in Western
Europe noticing continues to nag at Fo. “Making people ignorant has become an art,
a science,” he sighs. “Journalism is the science of not informing people.”
It’s understandable that Fo is so suspicious of the mass media. His work has always
suffered censorship and interference. During his mayoral bid, TV stations simply
ignored him. To find his audience, he has to meet them face to face. During his
campaign, he staged a number of shows that fell somewhere between theatre and
political rallies.
Often, when celebrities turn to politics, they become bores. Not Fo. Even as he has
been busy provoking his enemies, he has never lost touch with his audience. A
consummate performer, Fo has also established a huge following for his playwriting.
Accidental Death of an Anarchist and Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! have been performed
countless times at theatres all over the world. Both enjoyed West End runs and are
frequently revived. Accidental Death was inspired by the true case of a suspect who
was thrown from the fourth-floor window of a police station in Milan at the time of
right-wing extremist bomb attacks. Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! is about working-class
women who rebel against rising prices by taking goods from stores without paying.
These plays appeal to a general audience who wouldn’t normally be attracted to the
works of a self-confessed anarcho-Marxist.
Fo is as busy as ever. He’s working on what he describes as “a story about
Michelangelo, his philosophy and his way of life”. It’s one of a series about artists he
has developed in recent years. It doesn’t sound contentious, but it’s safe to predict
that he will find an angle that will upset someone or other. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t
have Dario Fo’s name on it.
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Tasks – Ideas for Forming, Presenting & Responding
Forming or Presenting Task:
In this task you could either use a practical Forming approach or a devised
Presenting approach.
Students will be divided into groups. They need to draw on all theoretical and
experiential learning to enact the specific performance style of Commedia select.
What stock characters will be integrated into the performance
Demonstrate an awareness of the function of relevant characters and use
appropriate acting skills
Create an original plot structure using traditional models and using a political
or socio-political topic
Incorporate and manipulate the elements of drama in the performance.
Use stagecraft and rehearsal skills appropriate to process
Reflect on their work through entries in the log and also provide assessments
of their peer’s work.
Responding Task:
Attached below is my Responding to Live Theatre Worksheet. It is a task I commonly
use to get students thinking about their live theatre experience and is broken down
into sections so they can plot out their ideas easily and simplistically. It can be the
beginnings of a review, an essay response or even a short response exam.
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Responding to Live Theatre Worksheet
NAME OF PLAY:
WRITTEN BY:
DIRECTED BY:
ACTORS:
Recommendation:
Why would you recommend this play? Why would it appeal to your target audience?
Narrative:
(Briefly outline the plot in 75 words or less and then evaluate how effectively the
play will entertain the audience)
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Themes and Issues:
What themes and issues are illuminated in the play? Explain how. What questions
are raised for the audience?
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Characters:
Why are the characters so engaging? You can elaborate on one character more
however you need to address at least 2 of the characters in the play.
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Dramatic Tension:
Identify the major tensions in the play that entertain the audience/elaborate on one
of the major themes. Analyse two specific examples.
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Behind the Scenes – from the Director
In conversation with the Director, Wesley Enoch.
Why Elizabeth?
Well, I’ve loved Dario Fo for decades. I really respect his work
because of both his politics and his Commedia work, which is
great. I was in a Commedia troupe – I was Punch. There was a
whole bunch of us who ran this Commedia Troupe, and there was
this real appreciation for the archetypal characters always built into that process. So
Elizabeth, the long story. I’d read it at university and a classmate of mine had put it
on. Then, after that, I loved it. The fascination with powerful women. That’s a
recurrent theme in my work – about how powerful women either overcome the odds
or somehow are reborn, either through death or in some sense of change, so I’m
always fascinated by that. Then about five years ago, I went to a reading of Louise
Fox’s translation and it was such an exciting text. Then Malthouse did their
production and I went along and saw it and it was great but I thought it had shifted,
from what it originally was, away from what its heart was. So I was really keen on
doing it. I thought what can I bring to it that someone else can’t – that’s the role of a
director. A unique perspective – and for me the Commedia stuff was a very clear
perspective. And the emotional heart of Elizabeth, a dying woman. She’s an ordinary
woman who is imagining herself as the Queen of England and that’s the heart of the
work.
When you get a text that’s translated, do you feel that it’s not going to have to
the same impact it did in its’ original language?
The joy is that you can translate it to be more responsive to today. The act of
translation is an invitation for us to reinvent the work. The way that Dario Fo works
– there was uproar when he won the Nobel Prize, because people were like “this
isn’t literature, it’s a process of working”. He literally invites artists who are staging
his work to reinvent it. Each of the actors has created their own set of lazzi – it’s a
lot of fun to watch.
So what’s the relevance for today’s audience?
The universality of it all – in an era of the individual, it’s taking to the extreme. You
are the Queen of your own mind. That’s a universal story. There’s a kind of way of
looking at yourself. There is a sense of how you are ruling for yourself; selfgratification without self-awareness.
At the end do you want us to feel sorry for Elizabeth or empowered by her?
The intention is that you’ve seen the grandness of a woman and the reality is that
you end with a little crumpled woman on a little crumpled bed, in this massive
empty space. It’s the loneliness of death. I try not to be too specific with these
images so that audience feels like they are dumb if they don’t get it. As a director
you are trying to not over-imbue it with your own meaning.
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The text is so in your face from the beginning – how did you start?
Very conventional start – read it, read it, read it. The ensemble had to buy into it,
too. Every single actor in that room is offering all the time. We’ve had to keep
offering and keep that rhythm going. We jump all the time in the text – back and
forth in her head – it’s really lovely. We’ve had to go back and block whole sections
because the rhythm wasn’t right. Having good skilled actors means a lot – they can
work that out.
Are you using the idea that there are the stock characters of Commedia in the
play?
I think the Queen is like the Pantalone, obviously. Martha is like Columbina – Egerton
is the Capitano of the group. Whilst he sometimes doesn’t always fit the mould, he
definitely lives up to it, most of the time. Grosslady is the Arlecchino, playing a role
and playing it up. The whole history too, of him being in drag. We have such a
strong history of it in this country. The term drag is actually Shakespearean. In
Shakespeare’s day, because men played women, the dresses they wore were long
and would drag along. So men called getting ready, getting “their drag on”. So, 400
years history of drag! Thomas is almost the Brighella; he’s present and generous
with a sense of innocence.
Tell us a little about the concept for the set…
Once we landed on the idea that the action was all inside her head, it was really
about manifesting that. We went through lots of versions – everything that’s in the
play is an extension of what’s in her head. The walls were originally going to be like
those hospital walls/screens. The idea that it’s like a padded cell, is pretty amazing.
The rocking horse is massive and huge, the stairway that goes to nowhere. We’ve
talked a lot about Jung and how the mind reads images and how the mind works.
Gothic talks a lot about how the external world is a manifestation of the internal
world.
And in the end...?
In the end, abdication means death. To lie down and die. She knew exactly what
she was doing, the will to live, was the will to rule over her body. At the end, the
choice is not hers. She rallies at the end and that saps her of all her energy and then
she dies. I think that’s a good story to tell, that the world gets pushed a bit further.
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Resources
A short documentary about Dario Fo and Franca Rame, A Nobel for
Two
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLc0YYUC31Y
Sydney Theatre Company The Resident’s talk about Accidental
Death of an Anarchist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccFK7253iX8
Commedia dell’Arte Stock Characters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUnaNTfTzuM&feature=related
You could also look at modern TV shows that use the archetypal
stock characters of Commedia. Many popular sitcoms and soap
operas follow the
For example;
- Seinfeld
- Fawlty Towers
- The Simpsons
- Will and Grace
- Bold and the Beautiful
- Young and the Restless
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