|
SYNTHESIS OF THE PLAY Antonio Berardi, a skilled worker at Milan's Fiat Mirafiori factory, comes across an attempt to kidnap Mr Gianni Agnelli, chairman of the firm, known also as The Lawyer and who as a result is badly injured and with his face disfigured in the frustrated attempt and the following skirmishes. Antonio, ignorant of the facts, runs to help the unfortunate potentate preventing him from a certain death because the car in which he travelled was in fire. Antonio gives him the first aids and takes the injured man to hospital where he is left wrapped in Antonio's jacket. When the clinic's staff check the documents carried by the victim they find out that the victim is Antonio Berardi, a workman of the Fiat Company, without guessing that the victim could be The Lawyer who is thought of as being in the hands of his abducters. The larger part of the play takes place among constant mistakes and misunderstandings as to both mens identities and the tragic-comic relationship established between them: Antonio's ex-wife and his friend, Mr Agnelli is considered a Fiat workman, the commissary who wants to elucidate the suspicions falling upon the victim, the judge and the secret agent-doctor. After a series of intriguing vicissitudes, which help to point out the italian politics of 70's which cropped out right after Aldo Moro's abduction and death, eventually the mixup is solved and Mr Agnelli, who represents The Capital, synthesizes the key to the happenings with a quotation by Marx: «The true and only power is the economical financial; in other words, Holdings, Markets, Banks, that is to say... The Capital». «In banknotes are written the sacred laws of the State... the economic. Governments and institutions are nothing more than the bases at the service of this State». |
