BRATTLEBORO — Vermont Theatre Company's first play of the 2016-17 season, “They Don't Pay? We Won't Pay!” wraps up its run this weekend.
According to a news release, this Italian farce about the common people's backlash against high prices and an unfair government is a poignant, heartwarming story of how a downtrodden people satisfies its need for food while keeping its dignity intact.
The story is told through the slapstick high jinks of Antonia, an unemployed housewife, who conspires with her best friend Margherita to steal food from grocery stores and hide it in creative ways from her husband and the police, resulting in a food riot.
“Non Si Paga! Non Si Paga!”, as the play is called in the original Italian, was written by Dario Fo and translated by Michael Aquilante and Jon Laskin. Since 1990, it has been performed in 35 countries. Fo wrote more than 80 plays and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997.
Michelle Page is the director of VTC's production, and Bridget McBride, Michael Sola, Nell Curley, Ian Epstein, and Bill Wieliczka make up the cast. The production crew is Brenda Seitz, Cameron Cobane, Ira Wilner, Rebecka Marchese, and Michaela Reardon.