The Argus: fringe_2011_logo_red_thumbDario Fo, Italy’s eminent playwright, is chiefly known for his blending of farce and politics across a range of prolific works like We Can’t Pay? We Won’t Pay!, Mistero Buffo and Accidental Death of an Anarchist.

Yet his play Coppia Aperta, or The Open Couple, saw the writer take on a different age-old battle – that of the sexes.

“His plays cross a whole load of issues and comments. People who have seen him perform say he’s quite clowny and a very ‘big’ performer,” explains director Nicola Haydn.

“I saw a version of The Open Couple in Cologne – imagine an Italian play performed in German – and although my German isn’t brilliant, the production was so incredible I totally understood it. That’s the thing about his writing and acting – it’s so ‘big’, you kind of get it, even when you don’t!”

Penned in 1982, the playwas written in tandem by Fo and his wife Franca Rame, and focuses on a husband and wife’s discussion about relationships.

“The husband wants an excuse to have extra-marital activity – he’s basically saying ‘It’s really old-fashioned being monogamous, let’s be modern and have an open relationship’. The wife struggles with that. In the first instance, she’d rather be alone than with anyone else,” says Haydn.

“Then she comes round to the idea, and he doesn’t like it. It’s basically a big fight with them being quite mean to each other as they show-off each others’ bad points and good points. There are elements of real, feisty fighting violence, followed by moments of them laughing together.”

Haydn views the work not as a play about “open relationships” specifically, but rather relationships generally – the fast-paced dialogue that flies between the two actors is as much about the mind games people play with each other than anything else.

“It looks at the nature of how people can be when they’re in a couple. Men ‘man up’ and try to fix things and women cry because they’re not getting their way – it’s very childish,” Haydn says.

“Anyone will recognise the games they play with each other… the tricks that they use on each other to win sympathy and score a point.

“My view is that they’re so bonkers they deserve each other. They’re horrible to each other, but they do care and there is a love there. It’s certainly not the kind of play that’s going to make you want to start an open relationship… it doesn’t paint it in a particularly healthy light.”

Haydn’s love of site-specific theatre gives an added dimension to the play – allowing the audience to feel they’ve been invited to this place by the wife in a rallying call to hear about what her husband has been up to.

“There’s a lot of talking to the audience. It’s in the round so it’s really interactive in a way. You’re certainly more than just a fly on the wall in the relationship. Every audience member is going to see the play from a different perspective – wherever you sit, you’re going to have a different experience to someone on the other side of room,” explains Haydn.

“I really like taking things out of theatres and directing things outside, making them accessible.

Sometimes there’s a tension when you go to the theatre – now I’ve got to sit down, now I’ve got be quiet, now I’ve got to behave myself for the next two hours – but this is a different experience.

"Audiences can come in, bring their drinks and sit around tables, not rows. It’s a lo-fi setting – there is no theatrical lighting and all of the sound effects are visible to an audience, made by a stage manager, like a radio play.”

Given their Argus Angel-winning Fringe success last year – a take on The Importance Of Being Ernest, set entirely in The Grand – Haydn and company Otherplace Productions are keen to prove that when it comes to theatre, anything goes.

“Someone said to me last year ‘I can’t believe you’re directing The Importance Of Being Ernest. That doesn’t seem up your street’ and I thought, ‘Well, what is upmystreet?’ I really like theatre and challenging people’s expectations about what we’re going to do next – so we just do lots of different things,” Haydn says.

“Our CV is all over the place – why pigeon-hole ourselves? A lot of people thought Ernest was a Festival show because of the calibre and the quality of it… the lines are blurring between what is festival and what is fringe, and I think that’s exciting.”