Dario Fo originally wrote Can't Pay! Won't Pay! in 1974 as a sharply satirical farce mirroring his view of  an oppressive authority in 1974 Milan. Through this hilariously relentless slapstick comedy, he calls on the working class to claim individual responsibility and take their fight to the streets. Later renamed Low Pay? Don't Pay, the play still tells the story of a struggling working class to survive the Global Financial Crisis, greedy banks, sky rocketing power bills, mass redundancies, and a bumbling and directionless leaders, and that bloody carbon tax! 

Already months behind on the rent and utilities, Antonia draws her best friend Margherita into  rebelling against the ruling class by taking groceries from the supermarket and deciding to only pay a price that's fair, which, simply put means half are half paid for, and the rest are free. The laughs start rolling in as the women resort to ever more outlandish strategies to avoid detection in a surreally spiralling scenario of fake pregnancies and fake miracles as they try to hide their stash from their righteous, albeit hypocritical husbands, and a ridiculously bumbling tribe of coppers, Even the Pope ends up with his head on a stick. 

Fuelled by a diet of canary seed and dog food, the menfolk find themselves also declining into the chaos, and soon, not even kids on the street are safe from their newfound 'liberation'.  As Fo had predicted two weeks after the opening of the play in '74, people took to paying what they considered to be a reasonable price and no more.  Today, Occupy Wall Street tells a similar story.

The pace is fast and furious, the message resoundingly clear; Low Pay? Don't Pay!

Director: Ray Nicholls
Stage Manager: Kirstie Cook
Stage Hand: Josh Nielsen
Original Soundtracks and Music Consultants: Irene Nichola & Martin Gallagher
Technical: Nathan Corris & Anthony Yeo
Set: Mat Power
Props: Lorrell Lee & Josh Nielsen

Antonia - Nic Bridges
Giovanni - Alec Lewis
Margherita - Rebecca Hurd
Luigi - Bille Scott
Everybody Else! - Brendan Lloyd
Pope - The Pope