Act 1 Scene 1In the first scene, Maniac has been convicted of something, then when they ask for his name, and read out what he does, Maniac corrects them for their grammar. Bertozzo gets very mad at him,and chases Maniac around. Maniac gets himself in a room, where he looks through all the files of the charges against people, he throws out the ones of the poorer people who had been convicted of small crimes. He doses this because he wanted justice for them. Inspector Pissani rings, and Maniac winds him up by pretending to be Bertozzo, by blowing raspberry's at him through the phone. Bertozzo comes into the rooms and shouts at Maniac to get out. Maniac tries to explain that that there is someone who is fuming and is going to punch his face, but Bertozzo doesn't not listen. When Pissani comes out of the lift, he finds Bertozzo and punches him hard in the face.
Act 2 Scene 1In this scene, they carry on reenacting the interrogation with the suspect, however, this time they were saying that at midnight after many hours of interrogation, they relieved the tension by 'having a laugh with the suspect'. Pissani claimed that the interrogation was only lighthearted and they were having jokes as well. But then the Maniac says that he had moved into a place near the police station, where he constantly heard noises of shrieking and screams, however he had 'mistaken' the screams and shrieks for horror and beatings rather then laughter and merriment according to the Superintendent and Pissani. Maniac then goes on reenacting and all of this in a comical and ironic way. At this point Maniac is pretending to help them but also showing how stupid they are to think that they will get away with the murder by writing other transcripts and making sure no-one knows that they killed the anarchist. Pissani and the Superintendent were confused if Maniac was on their side or not.
Manic moves on to another flaw which was how the suspect got on to the window sill (as it was quite high and need someone to help him get there). Maniac asked if there was a little trampoline, spring or step ladder to help him. However they deny this and say there wasn't anything there to help him. The Constable then said that he tried to grab his foot to save him, but he only got his shoe, and they all praise him for doing this. However, Maniac finds another flaw, as in the papers it stated that the anarchist was wearing two shoes, therefore their way of saving him was wrong. The Superintendent gets fuming and stressed out, and Pissani, completely in panic comes up with the most absurd excuse. Pissani said that on one of his foot - which the constable caught, had two shoes because one was larger than the other therefore he had one side that one, so the Constable had caught the larger shoe. This may be an element of farce. The Superintendent gets even more angry and stressed out, but the Constable suggests that he may have caught a galosh. However even that did not work. The Superintendent gets so mad at Pissani and the Constable that he ends up admitting that they murdered the anarchist in front of Maniac. This part ends with the phone ringing but they are all too in shock of Manic over hearing all of this that they just stand there frozen. The scene carries on with Pissani picking up the phone and saying that a journalist from 'L'Unita' named Feletti was there. They all start to panic because they know that she would be asking questions about the crime scene, and they say as Pissani quotes 'a bloody viper'. Therefore, they have an idea that Maniac would pretend to be a witness so they do not spill everything to her. Maniac goes out to get his disguise on while Feletti enters. The Superintendent and Pissani both try to get on her good side but then Feletti fires back by asking questions to Pissani about why he is called the 'Window Straddler'. Pissani becomes panicky and denies this, while the Superintendent introduce the witness (Maniac). Maniac comes in dressed like an overly exaggerated pirate. He introduces himself and they get back to the 'window straddling' topic and Feletti provides evidence that it took them 5 minutes to call an ambulance, this was were there was a joke about them having to call an ambulance on the 'off-chance' and Maniac comes with a witty response to this, as he does to the other times she tries to fights against them. Moreover, Maniac had a 'glass eye' which fell out when the Superintendent pat him hard on the back because he gave great responses. Maniac then tells them to find his glass eye. After a while, Bertozzo comes flying in with a massive bandage on his eye - where Pissani had punched him. As he did not know what was going on, there was a lot of irony here. He starts off by giving the bomb which went off in the 'Agricultural Bank'. When Bertozzo is going to put the bomb on the desk, he slips on the eye which sends the bomb, eye and himself flying. The Superintendent screams 'The bomb!', the Constable hits the deck, Feletti screams, Maniac catches the bomb and Pissani catches the eye. It is all chaos at one moment. Bertozzo realises that it was the same Maniac that he 'arrested'. |
Act 1 Scene 2In this scene, Maniac dresses up as the Judge that the Superintendent, Pissani and the Constable were expecting.
Maniac makes fun of Pissani who just punched Bertozzo. Maniac and Pissani are in the room which the anarchist was thrown out, he then calls in the Superintendent, who was just busy beating up someone in interrogation with a blackjack. Maniac then pulls the Superintendent aside, and they together do a fascist dance, as the Superintendent may have met the Judge before in 'Calabria'. This shows that Maniac is making him think that he is on his side, so that he tells the Judge everything. Maniac has a tape recorder to record everything that they all say. Maniac then goes through the transcript with them and finds flaws in them - the Superintendent and Pissani wound the anarchist up which was why he jumped. Therefore they were to blame. Maniac then threatens them that because of this, they will be sacked, their family would hate them and their lives would fall apart, and their only option is to jump out of the window. They then deny this and bring out another transcript. In this one, it claims that the anarchist was happy and cheerful, the Maniac asks why he then decided to jump out of the window. They said to screw that one and they started to write another one. Maniac tells them that the anarchist was a railwayman, and from this remind them of their childhood, by reminding them of their person train set. From this they go into an Italian song. Bertozzo then tries to tell Pissani and Superintendent that he is an impostor, while they think that Bertozzo thinks that Maniac is a Judge pretending to be a witness, when really Maniac is an imposture of a Judge too, which Pissani and Superintendent do not know. So there is a lot of irony here. Pissani and Superintendent both want Bertozzo to shut up, so they keep on kicking him so he doesn't say that Maniac is an imposture to Feletti. Feletti goes back to the topic of the bomb and asks many questions about it, trying to uncover who planted it and who made it. The Maniac then steps in and implies that military person could dismantle and handle it. While Bertozzo tries to get a word in again that the Maniac is an impostor, but Superintendent and Pissani keep kicking and hurting him to stop him.
Feletti goes on about how it could only be a fascist or extreme right para-military group who did this. The Maniac suggests from Feletti's speech that the police should be focusing on para-military fascist organisations rather than anarchists, because they are the ones who would be most likely to plant the bombs. Meanwhile, Bertozzo finally figured out who the Maniac was and proves it by trying to take off his disguise, Pissani and Superintendent both wrestle him, but Bertozzo gets out and takes of the Maniac's eye patch. But Maniac and Feletti carry on with their conversation while Bertozzo uncovers his disguise. Bertozzo becomes mad, so he orders the three policemen to go against the audience, when it should be the wall, pointing a gun at them and asks Feletti to handcuff them against the window frame. Bertozzo then asks Maniac to tell everyone who he really is, surprisingly he does it proudly and hands everyone the documents. While they all see what the Maniac has done, Maniac fiddles with the bomb without them knowing it. Feletti oblivious to who the Maniac really is, stands there confused. They then go on about Dario Fo and how he is 'sexist' because there is only one woman's part, and how he doesn't exactly care because he is getting royalties. They then get back to the script, when Maniac has a tape recorder which recorded everything that they all said. While this is being played, Maniac takes off his disguises, and this is where Feletti recognises him and realises what has happened. Maniac cunningly threatens them that if he takes his finger off the detonator the bomb would go off in 5 minutes. He orders Bertozzo to handcuff himself like the rest did, and they ask what he would do with the tape. Maniac replies by saying that he would make copies of it and spread them around, while Feletti collects the handcuff keys. The Maniac them starts the timer on the bomb, which makes the policemen panic. Feletti and Maniac have an argument that if Maniac lets the bomb explode, then he is not better than them. However, with less than 5 minutes till it explodes they have a political debate. This is farce because it is ridiculous to have a debate about something stupid when there is a bomb about to go off. The Maniac then tactically leaves the decision for Feletti to either leave the keys and run or free the policemen, as there is no other way out. She finally makes the decision to leave the keys and run which resulted in the policemen dying. However, Maniac says that even though this is a happy ending for some, they have to show to version in which Feletti sets them free. So this happens. but the policemen lock her up as she has all the evidence, and leave her with the bomb. |