Can't Pay? Won't Pay!

Can't Pay? Won't Pay![1][2] (Italian: Non Si Paga! Non Si Paga!,[3] also translated We Can't Pay? We Won't Pay! and Low Pay? Don't Pay![2]) is play originally written in Italian by Dario Fo.[4] Regarded as Fo's best-known play internationally after Morte accidentale di un anarchico, it had been performed in 35 countries by 1990.[5]

Can't Pay? Won't Pay!
Written byDario Fo
Original languageItalian
SubjectConsumer backlash against high prices
GenrePolitical satire
Two stickers, still on their backing sheet, from the group "Luton Against The Poll Tax", using the slogan "Can't pay won't pay", popularised by the Dario Fo play of that name

Considered a Marxist,[6] political farce,[7] it is one of Fo's most famous plays.[8] A comedy about consumer backlash against high prices,[9] it was written by Fo in 1974.[10]

It was first translated into English in 1975 by Lino Pertile.[1] A North American English-language adaptation of the play was created by R. G. Davies around 1984.[11] The American premiere was performed by the San Francisco Mime Troupe.[12]

The title of the original English translation, Can't Pay? Won't Pay!, has passed into the English language.[2]

Further reading
  • Mitchell, Tony (1999), Dario Fo: People's Court Jester (Updated and Expanded), London: Methuen, ISBN 0-413-73320-3.

References
  1. Knowles, Elizabeth (2007). Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-920895-6.
  2. Gardner, Lyn (18 April 2010). "Low Pay? Don't Pay!". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 April 2010.
  3. Paul Kuritz (1988). The Making of Theatre History. p. 403. ISBN 0-13-547861-8.
  4. daVinci Nichols, Nina (2005). Maurice Charney (ed.). "Italian Comedy". Comedy: A Geographic and Historical Guide, Volume 2. Greenwood Publishing Group: 420. ISBN 0-313-32715-7.
  5. Mitchell 1999, p. 130
  6. Hischak, Thomas S. (2001). American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1969–2000. Oxford University Press. p. 178. ISBN 0-19-512347-6.
  7. Bondanella, Peter; Conway Bondanella, Julia (2001). Cassell Dictionary Italian Literature. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 219. ISBN 0-304-70464-4.
  8. Marcos, Subcomandante (2003). Juana Ponce de Leon (ed.). Our Word is Our Weapon. Seven Stories Press. p. 329. ISBN 1-58322-472-6.
  9. "Theater". New York. December 29, 1980 – January 5, 1981.
  10. Schechner, Richard (2002). Performance Studies: An Introduction. Routledge. p. 247. ISBN 0-415-14620-8.
  11. Healey, Robin (1998). Twentieth-Century Italian Literature in English Translation: An Annotated Bibliography 1929–1997. University of Toronto Press. p. 299. ISBN 0-8020-0800-3.
  12. Taviano, Stefania (2005). Staging Dario Fo and Franca Rame: Anglo-American Approaches to Political Theatre. Ashgate Publishing. p. 70. ISBN 0-7546-5401-X.
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