Art Wednesday

Words by Stephen McEwen.

Dario Fo and Franca Ramé are not your average Italian husband and wife. Their work, which now spans over half a century, has made them into Italy’s foremost theatrical figures, due to its socio-politically rigorous critique of post-war Italy. With Ramé being elected as a senator for the Italia dei Valori party in the mid 2000s, and Fo running, albeit unsuccessfully, for the mayoral elections in Milan, they are courageously more than willing to put their ideals into practice. The highly satirical nature of their work has caused much controversy in Italy, hounded by fascists, praised by communists, and suffering from censorship and picketing from both state and Church – such suffering has unfortunately not been restricted to the work itself, as Franca Ramé was abducted, tortured and raped by a fascist group in 1973. Thus, the literary milieu in which DogOrange’s adaptation of ‘A Woman Alone’ at the Brockley Jack Theatre finds itself, is one wrought with the tensions of satire and sexual politics – all intrinsically linked in Fo and Ramé’s view of what really constitutes individual and civil freedoms in modern Italy.

In this play, the sharp focus of the Nobel Prize winner and his wife falls on the socio-sexual politics of women. Fo and Ramé’s Italian woman is a far cry from the pornographically bosomed, almost grotesque, wide-eyed mama Italiana puppet in the Dolmio adverts, and is instead desperate and long-suffering, physically imprisoned by her husband in their flat, left to wallow in domesticity alongside their baby and her lecherous brother-in-law. Initially intended as a monologue for one actress to perform as a long and painful cry of mental instability, brought on by social patriarchy, DogOrange, in a stroke of inspiration, has vibrantly refreshed the performance in having five women play the eponymous figure of ‘A Woman Alone.’ This ensures that the production is without a dull moment. Conceptually, it more than supports the ideas of the text, fracturing our view of the woman five-fold to express the divided and frenzied mental state of a woman under stress, and quite literally bringing home the dogmatic problems, and the effects thereof, of her position in marriage, and wider society. Through this pentagonal lens of performance, we come to see the figure as an ‘everywoman’, skilfully and buoyantly distinct, yet unified through vigorous stage movement and presence. Despite the performances and production occasionally being somewhat rough around the edges, the improvised slapstick and physicality of commedia dell’arte, from which the production seems to be inspired, and which Fo and Ramé use themselves, diversifies the imprisoned domesticity which the intimate space of the Brockley Jack Studio provides. Each prop and movement within such a confined space becomes vivid with significance, and is visually and physically manipulated with success. In one gripping scene, we see the character recount the adulterous moment which led simultaneously to her sexual and emotional awakening, as well as her imprisonment, standing on a table performing a symbolic self-asphyxiation, whilst painfully reaching out to the audience, as the other women dance erotically and sensually around her on the floor.

Blending strong elements of comedy and tragedy in such a lively and engaging production, whilst also using such physicality and movement to conceptually support the socio-political ideas of the text, DogOrange has succeeded in avoiding what could have been a rather tedious monologue of what is now often perceived as an out-dated feminism. We feel the full force of Fo and Ramé’s literary intentions, feeling gripped with and by, a woman on stage who is very much alone with everybody.

A Woman Alone runs at the Brockley Jack Theatre from Oct. 19^th – Nov 6^th.

The Brockley Jack Theatre (Click Here)