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Maniac
Inspector Bertozzo is the policeman who interrogates the Maniac in the play’s first scene. He initially seems like a responsible, competent detective, but as the Maniac taunts and manipulates him, it gradually becomes clear that he is actually cruel, unimaginative, and willing to do anything to get ahead. When the Maniac turns Inspector Pissani against Bertozzo and takes on a whole new set of identities in Act Two, Bertozzo becomes the butt of many of the play’s jokes. As the police’s resident explosives expert, he shows Feletti a replica of the bomb used in the attack and inadvertently reveals to her and the audience that the police were actually behind it. Unaware that Pissani and the Superintendent believe the Maniac to be Magistrate Malipiero and are going along with his ridiculous impersonation of Captain Piccini, Bertozzo repeatedly tries to expose the Maniac. But he doesn’t succeed until the very end of the play, when he takes everyone else hostage in an attempt to save them. Ironically, much like the Maniac, Bertozzo ends up acting unstable and insane in order to achieve totally serious objectives. Fo uses this tactic as a metaphor for how the state bureaucracy and the police corrupt ordinary people.
Inspector Bertozzo Quotes in Accidental Death of an Anarchist
The Accidental Death of an Anarchist quotes below are all either spoken by Inspector Bertozzo or refer to Inspector Bertozzo. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act 1, Scene 1
Quotes
BERTOZZO: (To Audience) Good evening. I am Inspector Francesco Giovanni Batista Giancarlo Bertozzo of the Security Police. This is my office on the first floor of our notorious headquarters here in Milan. Notorious following a sordid little incident a few weeks ago when an anarchist, under interrogation in a similar room a few floors above, fell through the window. Although my colleagues claimed quite reasonably, that the incident was suicide, the official verdict of the enquiry is that the death of the anarchist was “accidental.” Bit ambiguous you see. So there’s been public outrage, accusations, demonstrations and so on flying around this building for weeks. Not the best atmosphere in which a decent nine to five plainclothes policeman like myself can do an honest inconspicuous day’s work.
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Explanation and Analysis:
BERTOZZO: I ought to warn you that the author of this sick little play, Dario Fo, has the traditional, irrational hatred of the police common to all narrow-minded left-wingers and so I shall, no doubt, be the unwilling butt of endless anti-authoritarian jibes.
MANIAC: Committed sixteen times, same thing every time—“Histrionic mania” from the Latin, histriones, “to act the part of”—my hobby, you see, the theatre; and my theatre is the theatre of reality so my fellow artistes must be real people, unaware that they are acting in my productions, which is handy, as you see, I’ve got no cash to pay them.
MANIAC: Ah ah. Strait-jacket or nothing. Article 122 of the Penal Code states, “Whoever in his capacity as a public official imposes non-clinical instruments of restraint upon a psychologically disturbed person in a manner liable to provoke a crisis in the disturbance shall incur charges punishable by five to fifteen years with forfeit of pension.”
CONSTABLE: Ah. (He backs off, terrified of losing his pension)
MANIAC: Who wants to be a barrister? I don’t want to be passive. I don’t want to defend. I’m like you, Inspector. I like to accuse, convict, judge and pass sentence.
BERTOZZO: Never actually impersonated a judge, have you? Just for the record?
MANIAC: Unfortunately the opportunity hasn’t arisen so far,
CONSTABLE: Shame.
MANIAC: Yes, but oh I’d love to do a judge. You see the thing about judges is that they never retire. That’s the beauty of it. Your ordinary humdrum sons and daughters of toil, they hit sixty and they’re finished, they slow down, get sloppy, sluggish, whoops onto the scrap heap—at that very same moment that your average magistrate blooms into a high court judge...
MANIAC: I’ll throw myself out! How high are we? I will.
BERTOZZO: Bugger him! I’ll give him a hand.
CONSTABLE: This place has got a bad enough record as it is. We can’t afford another one.
BERTOZZO: You’re right, Constable.
CONSTABLE: I know I’m right.
MANIAC: And when I’m down there all sludgy on the pavement and doing the death rattle and be warned I shall take a long time to die and I’ll be rattling a lot—the journalists will be flocking round and I’ll tell them, rattling away, that you pushed me!! (He makes to jump)
MANIAC: Let me stay
BERTOZZO: Out!
MANIAC: I can help you.
BERTOZZO: Throw yourself down the stairs you fruitcake!
MANIAC: No need to be so rough.
MANIAC struggles to gain possession of his plastic carrier bags lying in a heap by his chair
BERTOZZO: Put your fucking head under a bus.
MANIAC: I can help you make subversives talk.
BERTOZZO: Slash your wrists.
MANIAC: I can injure without visible signs.
BERTOZZO: Do what you like! I don’t care!
MANIAC: I know how to make nitroglycerine suppositories!
BERTOZZO: OUT!!
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MANIAC: Nobody move. Justice has arrived.
He empties files out of the window.
MANIAC: You’re free, free, absolutely free! Not so free.
He opens top drawer of filing cabinet and looks through.
MANIAC: Oooh I see, the big fish. Pesci grossi! Diamond smugglers, drug racketeers. You can all stay there. Where are all the little people? I know.
Closes top drawer and opens bottom drawer. Looks through.
MANIAC: That’s more like it. Heads!
Takes an armful of files and empties them out of the window
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Explanation and Analysis:
(Blows-a huge raspberry down the phone) That was Bertozzo blowing you a raspberry, He says you can both rot for all he cares, you’ve stood in his way long enough, about time you were re-posted or pensioned off … Where? … Where? … South, probably, some flea-infested station in the arsehole of the world where the bandits use the fuzz for target practice when the melons are out of season … Ha ha OK, I’ll tell him. (Phone away) … He says he’s going to push our faces in at the earliest opportunity ha ha … (To phone) You and whose army … ? (Raspberry) Heil Himmler!!
Act 2, Scene 1
Quotes
The MANIAC is outrageously costumed. He wears false moustache, glasses, wild wig, wooden leg, false hand, eye patch, carries a crutch.
MANIAC: Delighted!
He proffers his false hand.
MANIAC: Pardon my stiff hand. It’s wooden. Memento of the Algerian campaign. Nasty business. We don’t talk about it.
They stare at his wooden leg. He gives it a slap.
MANIAC: Vietnam. Green Berets. All past history. Do sit down.
Slowly they all sit.
MANIAC: (To Audience) No cigarettes please. All dry wood here. Right, young woman, don’t mind me. I’ll just park my old timbers over here and you get stuck in. What’s the subject?
FELETTI: Window straddling.
MANIAC: (He sits awkwardly) Splendid.
MANIAC: (Getting carried away. To audience) How many more Russian spies are downing port at Buckingham Palace? Why did the Anthony Blunt cover-up happen? Why? Because class runs thicker than nationhood or ideology. But who gives a TINKER’S about that—what the scandal-mongering press cares about Blunt is whether he is knocking off Guy Burgess.
SUPERINTENDENT: (Name of actor who is playing the part) This isn’t Dario Fo.
MANIAC: I know, but I love bit of political gossip. What about the bastard politicians and businessmen mixed-up in busting Rhodesian oil sanctions? We all know who they are. Are there any arrests? Not fucking likely. Meanwhile innocent black kids can’t walk the streets for fear of getting picked up on SUS charges.
PISSANI: This is unheard of distortion of the author’s meaning!
MANIAC: He’ll get his royalties. Who’s moaning?
PISSANI: Get back to the script!
SUPERINTENDENT: This is an insult to Dario Fo!
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Inspector Bertozzo Quotes in Accidental Death of an Anarchist
The Accidental Death of an Anarchist quotes below are all either spoken by Inspector Bertozzo or refer to Inspector Bertozzo. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Act 1, Scene 1
Quotes
BERTOZZO: (To Audience) Good evening. I am Inspector Francesco Giovanni Batista Giancarlo Bertozzo of the Security Police. This is my office on the first floor of our notorious headquarters here in Milan. Notorious following a sordid little incident a few weeks ago when an anarchist, under interrogation in a similar room a few floors above, fell through the window. Although my colleagues claimed quite reasonably, that the incident was suicide, the official verdict of the enquiry is that the death of the anarchist was “accidental.” Bit ambiguous you see. So there’s been public outrage, accusations, demonstrations and so on flying around this building for weeks. Not the best atmosphere in which a decent nine to five plainclothes policeman like myself can do an honest inconspicuous day’s work.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
BERTOZZO: I ought to warn you that the author of this sick little play, Dario Fo, has the traditional, irrational hatred of the police common to all narrow-minded left-wingers and so I shall, no doubt, be the unwilling butt of endless anti-authoritarian jibes.
MANIAC: Committed sixteen times, same thing every time—“Histrionic mania” from the Latin, histriones, “to act the part of”—my hobby, you see, the theatre; and my theatre is the theatre of reality so my fellow artistes must be real people, unaware that they are acting in my productions, which is handy, as you see, I’ve got no cash to pay them.
MANIAC: Ah ah. Strait-jacket or nothing. Article 122 of the Penal Code states, “Whoever in his capacity as a public official imposes non-clinical instruments of restraint upon a psychologically disturbed person in a manner liable to provoke a crisis in the disturbance shall incur charges punishable by five to fifteen years with forfeit of pension.”
CONSTABLE: Ah. (He backs off, terrified of losing his pension)
MANIAC: Who wants to be a barrister? I don’t want to be passive. I don’t want to defend. I’m like you, Inspector. I like to accuse, convict, judge and pass sentence.
BERTOZZO: Never actually impersonated a judge, have you? Just for the record?
MANIAC: Unfortunately the opportunity hasn’t arisen so far,
CONSTABLE: Shame.
MANIAC: Yes, but oh I’d love to do a judge. You see the thing about judges is that they never retire. That’s the beauty of it. Your ordinary humdrum sons and daughters of toil, they hit sixty and they’re finished, they slow down, get sloppy, sluggish, whoops onto the scrap heap—at that very same moment that your average magistrate blooms into a high court judge...
MANIAC: I’ll throw myself out! How high are we? I will.
BERTOZZO: Bugger him! I’ll give him a hand.
CONSTABLE: This place has got a bad enough record as it is. We can’t afford another one.
BERTOZZO: You’re right, Constable.
CONSTABLE: I know I’m right.
MANIAC: And when I’m down there all sludgy on the pavement and doing the death rattle and be warned I shall take a long time to die and I’ll be rattling a lot—the journalists will be flocking round and I’ll tell them, rattling away, that you pushed me!! (He makes to jump)
MANIAC: Let me stay
BERTOZZO: Out!
MANIAC: I can help you.
BERTOZZO: Throw yourself down the stairs you fruitcake!
MANIAC: No need to be so rough.
MANIAC struggles to gain possession of his plastic carrier bags lying in a heap by his chair
BERTOZZO: Put your fucking head under a bus.
MANIAC: I can help you make subversives talk.
BERTOZZO: Slash your wrists.
MANIAC: I can injure without visible signs.
BERTOZZO: Do what you like! I don’t care!
MANIAC: I know how to make nitroglycerine suppositories!
BERTOZZO: OUT!!
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
MANIAC: Nobody move. Justice has arrived.
He empties files out of the window.
MANIAC: You’re free, free, absolutely free! Not so free.
He opens top drawer of filing cabinet and looks through.
MANIAC: Oooh I see, the big fish. Pesci grossi! Diamond smugglers, drug racketeers. You can all stay there. Where are all the little people? I know.
Closes top drawer and opens bottom drawer. Looks through.
MANIAC: That’s more like it. Heads!
Takes an armful of files and empties them out of the window
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
(Blows-a huge raspberry down the phone) That was Bertozzo blowing you a raspberry, He says you can both rot for all he cares, you’ve stood in his way long enough, about time you were re-posted or pensioned off … Where? … Where? … South, probably, some flea-infested station in the arsehole of the world where the bandits use the fuzz for target practice when the melons are out of season … Ha ha OK, I’ll tell him. (Phone away) … He says he’s going to push our faces in at the earliest opportunity ha ha … (To phone) You and whose army … ? (Raspberry) Heil Himmler!!
Act 2, Scene 1
Quotes
The MANIAC is outrageously costumed. He wears false moustache, glasses, wild wig, wooden leg, false hand, eye patch, carries a crutch.
MANIAC: Delighted!
He proffers his false hand.
MANIAC: Pardon my stiff hand. It’s wooden. Memento of the Algerian campaign. Nasty business. We don’t talk about it.
They stare at his wooden leg. He gives it a slap.
MANIAC: Vietnam. Green Berets. All past history. Do sit down.
Slowly they all sit.
MANIAC: (To Audience) No cigarettes please. All dry wood here. Right, young woman, don’t mind me. I’ll just park my old timbers over here and you get stuck in. What’s the subject?
FELETTI: Window straddling.
MANIAC: (He sits awkwardly) Splendid.
MANIAC: (Getting carried away. To audience) How many more Russian spies are downing port at Buckingham Palace? Why did the Anthony Blunt cover-up happen? Why? Because class runs thicker than nationhood or ideology. But who gives a TINKER’S about that—what the scandal-mongering press cares about Blunt is whether he is knocking off Guy Burgess.
SUPERINTENDENT: (Name of actor who is playing the part) This isn’t Dario Fo.
MANIAC: I know, but I love bit of political gossip. What about the bastard politicians and businessmen mixed-up in busting Rhodesian oil sanctions? We all know who they are. Are there any arrests? Not fucking likely. Meanwhile innocent black kids can’t walk the streets for fear of getting picked up on SUS charges.
PISSANI: This is unheard of distortion of the author’s meaning!
MANIAC: He’ll get his royalties. Who’s moaning?
PISSANI: Get back to the script!
SUPERINTENDENT: This is an insult to Dario Fo!
