ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST, Splunge Productions, at Zebra Crossing Theatre. Dario Fo’s tightly written political farce is an ambitious choice for a new company: its hairpin twists and sophisticated clowning require a deft touch to avoid the trap of a Three Stooges approach. But the gleefully energetic Splunge Productions keeps the play’s satire plummeting forward, thanks to Marianne White’s intelligent direction and Michael Butler Murray’s multilayered performance as the Fool, a classic European political clown role created to disrupt the precarious narrative we call “reality” onstage and off. The play–updated to reflect contemporary American scandals and censorship–reams state systems that promote mediocrity and suppress resistance, as the supposedly insane Fool infiltrates the police department and lays bare the truths behind the death of an innocent anarchist accused of setting bombs.
