“CAN’ T PAY? WON’ T
PAY!”, DARIO FO
THE PLOT:
"Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay!" is a comedy written by Dario Fo in
1974. A group of women get to a supermarket and refuse to pay the new doubled
priced products because of the economic crisis. They cause a tremendous
confusion at the supermarket, come into open conflict with the owner, and are almost
threatening him, but eventually they grab whatever they can, without paying
anything. As expected, soon the police arrive to put things in order, but
the whole situation is completely out of control, so as police duty is
impossible to be carried out. The furious ladies catch the tram and
disappear, so the police cannot find out which of the products have been paid
for and which ones have not. The whole plot of "Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay!"
is based on this outrageous fact.
The episode is not shown to the audience, but it is just told as a story
by the eyewitness star actress of the play, Antonia, who returns home carrying bags
full of products from the supermarket. Antonia describes what happened, to
her friend Margaret, who is stunned and angry with her bad luck, since she didn’t
happen to be there. This dialogue gradually reveals a number of economic problems,
such as unpaid rents and overdue bills. This situation seems to be
something very normal. The women, in
order to be able to hide and carry the stolen goods under their clothes,
pretend to be pregnant. Consequently, “pregnant”
women are all over the place, leaving their husbands speechless, since they have
no idea of what happened. Trying to justify
the unjustifiable, the women say crazy things and their husbands, who are
incredulous, pretend that they believe them.
The women try to convince everybody that babies are born in brine (salty
water). Every logic collapses and the absurd
is what humans are left with…
Shimitra Erasmia
