Accidental Death Of An Anarchist

In Accidental Death of an Anarchist, the police function as both characters and symbols. Symbolically, the police are a narrative stand-in for the people and institutions in power, illustrating many of the themes Fo explores in the play. The police are corrupt, taking every opportunity to maintain and extend their reach, just like the capitalists, politicians, and government officials the play critiques. It becomes clear, early on, that the police are caricatures, especially The Chief. Lacking even a proper name, he is referred to as The Chief throughout the play, rendering him more a symbol of leaders in a corrupt society than a person. The Chief is solely focused on covering up his involvement in the anarchist’s death and maintaining his control over his subordinates, suspects, and The Reporter. He goes so far as to threaten The Reporter in an attempt to make sure she writes what he wants her to. Fo uses The Chief as a proxy for corrupt officials, to illustrate how powerful people and institutions manipulate the truth to stay in control.

The Captain is an archetypal “yes-man.” He enables The Chief, looking for any means to explain, excuse, and even assist him in his increasingly corrupt actions, instead of standing in his way. The Captain helps The Chief hide his involvement in the interrogation and murder of the anarchist, vouching for his superior’s alibi. To Fo, these kinds of “yes-men” are just as corrupt and at fault as their superiors.

Only Inspector Bertozzo stands apart from the other officers. At the beginning, he is an unremarkable inspector, a cog in the machine of the police force. However, in Act II, Inspector Bertozzo illustrates his role as an individual within a corrupt institution. He becomes incensed with the scandal of The Fool’s involvement in police matters. While he has his own issues, and is ultimately a part of the rampant corruption, Inspector Bertozzo doesn’t go along with The Chief, Captain Pissani, or The Fool. Instead, he takes action against The Fool, going as far as handcuff every other character. For a moment, Inspector Bertozzo takes on the role of a revolutionary, standing up against the scandals, the corruption, and the manipulation of fact and truth. In contrast with Captain Pissani and The Chief, he is unwilling to put up with corruption any longer. However, as the lights go out and The Fool is defenestrated, Inspector Bertozzo returns to his role as a lower-level police officer. Just as citizens in a corrupt society will momentarily stand up to the leader when a new scandal is written up in the news, only to return, sated by the promise of reform or the release of tension, to the status quo.

The Presidential portrait hangs on a wall in the fourth-floor room of the police headquarters. It is one of the only differences between the fourth and second floors, and Inspector Bertozzo eventually uses it to communicate in Act II. Fo is very particular about the scenic design he details in Accidental Death of an Anarchist; his theater career began in set design. Everything on the set is either used by the characters or to communicate a message. Much of the play revolves around the corruption of authority figures and the pervasive power abuses. The head of state, the ultimate government authority, is the president. Having the president’s portrait on the wall in the same room where a man was thrown out of a window after being beaten to death illustrates how the state unofficially sanctioned these actions by police. Essentially, the president was looking on in approval. The President of the United States (Ronald Reagan, at the time of publishing) is consistently lambasted by Fo for being corrupt and having dementia. While breaking the fourth wall, a literary device where the characters acknowledge the reader and audience, The Fool alludes to the play potentially being set in the United States before quickly correcting himself: “They’re sending him from Washington?—oops, sorry I mean Rome; once in a while I forget about theatrical transposition” (21). As the script does not specify if the presidential portrait was of the Italian President (who at the time was Alessandro Pertini) or the American President, it is reasonable to imagine it either way.

In Act II, Inspector Bertozzo writes on the portrait to get a message to The Reporter and his fellow police about The Fool. Bertozzo writes that The Fool is “a maniac, a nut!” (89). The Reporter, however, doesn’t pay the message much attention. Instead of heeding his warning, The Chief is angry at Inspector Bertozzo for defacing the portrait. This reverence for the president’s portrait—reminiscent of the Catholic practice of venerating portraits of saints and other religious figures—casts the president as a figure of worship rather than as the people’s elected representative. Bertozzo’s writing also serves as a visual joke, as the writing appears to apply as much to the president as to The Fool. The motif of the portrait hanging on the wall of the police headquarters is eerie and evokes the threat of state-sanctioned surveillance—a practice the police enact by placing spies within the anarchist and socialist movements. The portrait also reminds the audience that the police abuse their power with tacit support from the highest levels of government.