Dog food anyone? Helen Thomson and Catherine Van-Davies consider possibilities. Photo: Prudence Upton
A riot of sharp humour and farce from beginning to end, No Way? No Pay! is an absolute standout. Director Sarah Giles is an adept at comedy (as anyone who saw 2018’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist can attest) and the stellar cast she has assembled for this production are all brilliant, as is the adaptation by Marieke Hardy.
Without losing its Italian flavour, Hardy has brought this play right into an Australian landscape and given it topical references that successfully pin down its socialism versus capitalism satire. First performed in 1974, its defence of workers’ rights is still familiar, the injustices still the same.
It begins with Antonia (Helen Thomson) arriving home to one of the nondescript flats that house other blue-collar workers. She’s relieved to find her husband Giovanni isn’t there because she’s laden down with stolen goods – together with other housewives irate at the inflationary prices at the supermarket, she has taken the law into her own hands and ‘liberated’ food she cannot afford to buy. Neither can she afford to pay the rent, the gas or the electricity. Sprung by her neighbour Margherita (Catherine Van-Davies), Antonia makes her complicit, whilst giving a hilarious resume of the ‘spontaneous uprising’ at supermarket and the justification for it. Thomson’s brash and quick-witted Antonia is a perfect foil for Van-Davies’ reluctant but compliant Margherita and their comic pairing works a treat all the way through the play.
By the time sirens sound, heralding a police raid of the estate, and the morally upright Giovanni (Glenn Hazeldine) arrives home, Antonia has hidden most of her haul but Margherita has several string bags of food under her coat and looks eight months’ pregnant. This baffles Giovanni as she has only been married five months and his mate Luigi, Margherita’s husband, has told him that his wife is on the pill. Antonia’s subsequent explanation for this and other aspects of human gestation, together with Giovanni’s acceptance of such ‘facts’, are priceless. Antonia, in a frowsy ’70s print frock and sensible shoes, is a wonderful liar.
Every moment of No Pay? No Way! is packed with action, comedy and farce. In this adaptation, the women are given more voice and it works perfectly. As the hapless and somewhat dim husbands, Hazeldine and Rahel Romahn’s Luigi create their own comic chaos. They too will rebel against the system as does one of the two cops (and four characters) that Aaron Tsindos plays to marvellous effect. His mime is magnificent, providing yet more laugh-out-loud moments.
‘This government wants you to stay distracted. They exploit you, then they act surprised.’
When No Pay? No Way! was staged in 1974, it inspired real riots in supermarkets. Giles notes in the program that she thinks Dario Fo would be upset to learn that this play has as much relevance to Australian audience in 2020 than it did to Italian ones nearly 50 years ago. Unions, bankers, capitalism, press barons… they’re all lacerated.
The set (designed by Charles Davis) almost becomes a character as the workers rebel. A joke within the joke, as it were.
This is a ferociously funny production and a joy to watch. I don’t suppose it will incite riots in Sydney (even as more large businesses are exposed for underpaying their workforce) but it can’t fail to incite laughter (and a realisation of the bleak truths it espouses). It’s good enough to see twice!
Until 28 March. Tickets $45-110. Then at Riverside Parramatta, from 1-4 April.
