How successful is Fo’s use of Brecht’s Alienation Effect and how does this enable Fo to preach his political agenda?
In ‘Accidental Death of an Anarchist’, Dario Fo employs Brecht’s Alienation Effect to enable him to preach to the audience his views on the Italian government and police corruption. The Alienation Effect refers to the breaking of the fourth wall - that is, the characters in the play addressing directly or indirectly acknowledging the existence of the audience or their own fictionality - with the aim of forcing the audience to stop passively watching the events of the play unfold as though they were unseen spectators at an event, identifying subconsciously with the characters, but rather to consciously consider the views presented …show more content…
One of the key themes of the play is corruption in the police force, referencing the fact that at the time the Italian police were known to be corrupt, and specifically looks at how the police were suspected of covering up the murder of an anarchist in police custody, the real life event around which the play is (loosely) based. As the play is a farce, consisting of a series of highly improbable and ludicrous events which unfold in short succession, the audience would be likely to sit back and watch these events unfold, but Fo - as an avid political campaigner - wanted them to actually consider how the events relate to their own lives, and realise how he is merely satirising the true corruption all around them. This satire is achieved through the way in which Fo portrays the police officers and their attempts to cover up the murder of the titular anarchist, with their exaggerated incompetence and ironic disregard for the laws they are intended to enforce. Thus, Fo’s employment of the Alienation Effect in the above scene is designed to cause the audience not only to question their surroundings in the auditorium, but to do so in their daily lives, and realise that they could be being watched at every turn, and that the informants mentioned in the play are theoretically real, as is - to a degree - the corruption and ineptitude he portrays as being so rampant in the police force and government in
In ‘Accidental Death of an Anarchist’, Dario Fo employs Brecht’s Alienation Effect to enable him to preach to the audience his views on the Italian government and police corruption. The Alienation Effect refers to the breaking of the fourth wall - that is, the characters in the play addressing directly or indirectly acknowledging the existence of the audience or their own fictionality - with the aim of forcing the audience to stop passively watching the events of the play unfold as though they were unseen spectators at an event, identifying subconsciously with the characters, but rather to consciously consider the views presented …show more content…
One of the key themes of the play is corruption in the police force, referencing the fact that at the time the Italian police were known to be corrupt, and specifically looks at how the police were suspected of covering up the murder of an anarchist in police custody, the real life event around which the play is (loosely) based. As the play is a farce, consisting of a series of highly improbable and ludicrous events which unfold in short succession, the audience would be likely to sit back and watch these events unfold, but Fo - as an avid political campaigner - wanted them to actually consider how the events relate to their own lives, and realise how he is merely satirising the true corruption all around them. This satire is achieved through the way in which Fo portrays the police officers and their attempts to cover up the murder of the titular anarchist, with their exaggerated incompetence and ironic disregard for the laws they are intended to enforce. Thus, Fo’s employment of the Alienation Effect in the above scene is designed to cause the audience not only to question their surroundings in the auditorium, but to do so in their daily lives, and realise that they could be being watched at every turn, and that the informants mentioned in the play are theoretically real, as is - to a degree - the corruption and ineptitude he portrays as being so rampant in the police force and government in