They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay!
It’s a Steal
They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay!
by Dario Fo, adapted by Deborah McAndrew
Teddington Theatre Club at Hampton Hill Theatre until 7th October
Review by Gill Martin
“Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay” could be the slogan for shoplifters hit by the current cost of living crisis. Or equally for desperate housewives driven into food bank poverty. Yet the title of this play by Dario Fo was penned way back in the mid-1970s as a political farce, a cutting consumer backlash against high prices in his Italian homeland.
This fast-paced new version of Nobel Prize winning playwright Dario Fo’s Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay, deftly adapted by Deborah McAndrew, is up to the moment with its sharp focus on Anthea (Jenna Powell), a menopausal woman on the edge, out of work and up to her eyes in arrears. A political farce, crazy plot, out of control imaginings… how will things unravel for poor Anthea and her kind?
No job, no money for gas, leccy, or rent of the high rise London flat she shares with factory worker Jack (Chris Dearle). No wonder Anthea succumbs to temptation when she becomes embroiled in a riot at the local supermarket and seizes the opportunity to stock her empty cupboards and those of her young friend Maggie (Rebecca Tarry), who works on zero-hours wages at a call centre while her husband Lewis (Jacob Taylor) faces the spectre of unemployment.
Kind-hearted Anthea is a dead loss at this looting lark, only managing to lift dog meat, budgie food and unappetising turkey neck. Now she and Maggie face a new dilemma: how to hide their lean but illegal pickings from their law-abiding husbands? What will they tell the police, who at the very start of the action are circling menacingly overhead in their helicopter?
When the going gets tough Anthea’s anarchic imagination takes over and she has a fantastical, farcical answer for everything ranging from phantom pregnancy to miracle-making saints.
Anarchy is Fo’s forte, no more so than his most famous work, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, another savage political farce that was a sell out West End hit this summer.
Immensely popular among the Left and Anti-Fascists, Fo was an anti-establishment figure in Italy. His Non Si Paga! Non Si Paga! , or Can’t Pay Won’t Pay, slots effortlessly into their mood here and now in a post-pandemic Britain – echoing their revulsion against what they see as corporate greed, political corruption, wage stagnation, zero hours exploitation and wealthy tax-avoiders.
Juanita Al-Dahhan, making her TTC directorial debut, relished the prospect of showing the sell-out first night audience how relevant the play is to modern Britain. She rose to the challenge of bringing together all the colour, clowning, sadness, and hope- played out against her wonderfully retro pink and blue set with slick scenery changes and bright costumes thanks to wardrobe by Mags Wrightson.
Al-Dahhan mines Fo’s rich mix of comedy and reality, social and political themes, whilst never losing sight of the fun and madness at its core.
‘Amongst the layers it’s essential not to lose the balance between comedy and truth,’ she explains. ‘This is the magic of Fo’s writing, razor truths sandwiched between a laugh.’
The ensemble cast of Zoe Arden, Enid Gayle, Lydia Kennard, Martine Neang and Racheal Rajah gained in voice and confidence while David Hannigan delivered a stand-out performance in four hilarious characters, including an anti-capitalist communist copper and a camp undertaker.
A heady confection of mayhem and miracles, law and disorder, and anarchy and fantasy all come sweetly together in Fo’s comic masterpiece.
Gill Martin, October 2023
Photography by Simone Best
Mark Aspen 