Breaking The Fourth Wall
It is not unusual for Dario Fo violate nineteenth century theatre conventions of the fourth wall in his work. Elizabeth: Almost by Chance a Woman does this to a greater degree than most of his work.
In the original production, Dame Grosslady was played by Fo and Elizabeth was played by his wife Franca Rame. This fact was often alluded to in improvisations. At one point Fo drops any pretence to playing a role, and addresses the audience as a playwright who is married to the lead actress. These improvisations made their way into the published script.
The first American production opens with an open letter to then President of the United States of America, Ronald Reagan, in which Fo addressed the President as a fellow actor, ironically thanking him for the free publicity afforded to Fo due to the earlier refusal by the State Department to grant him a visa. This letter also notes that any semblance between Elizabeth and Reagan, in terms of personal vanity, covert operations (one scheme enacted by Elizabeth's spies has a remarkable similarity to the Iran-Contra Affair) is purely coincidental. This letter appears in the English language version translated by Ron Jenkins.
Elizabeth speculates over the course of the play, that William Shakespeare's character of Hamlet is a satirical portrayal of her majesty. Fo, both in his role of Dame Grosslady and in his open letter to President Reagan, denies Elizabeth's speculation that Shakespeare would have ever written political satire.
|
Read more about this topic: Elizabeth: Almost By Chance A Woman
Famous quotes containing the words breaking the, breaking, fourth and/or wall:
“The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“All the aspects of this desert are beautiful, whether you behold it in fair weather or foul, or when the sun is just breaking out after a storm, and shining on its moist surface in the distance, it is so white, and pure, and level, and each slight inequality and track is so distinctly revealed; and when your eyes slide off this, they fall on the ocean.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The British are a self-distrustful, diffident people, agreeing with alacrity that they are neither successful nor clever, and only modestly claiming that they have a keener sense of humour, more robust common sense, and greater staying power as a nation than all the rest of the world put together.”
—Quoted in Fourth Leaders from the Times (1950)
“Me in my vow’d
Picture the sacred wall declares t’have hung
My dank and dropping weeds
To the stern God of Sea.”
—Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] (65–8)