Johan Padan and the Discovery of the Americas

At the end of his nearly two hours (with a five minute break) alone on a bare stage as the eponymous Johan Padan, Steve Gome is understandably drained and weary.  He delivers this ‘epic monologue’ in a cod Italian accent with relentless, restless, manic energy; he is almost never still.  Everything, every incident, every character in this picaresque counter version of the ‘discovery’ of the Americas by Columbus and his predatory Spaniards, must be acted out, mimed, with much falling down and jumping up.  The words are never enough.  At first this is energizing and engaging and amusing, but as it goes on, there’s not a lot of ‘light and shade’ and eventually, despite the jokes, the bizarre incidents, the hair’s breadth escapes and Dario Fo’s usual rather hit-you-over-the-head satire, it becomes in the end monotonous and wearying.

There is a moment, in the second half, when Mr Gome sits in an audience seat and simply tells the story.  For the audience, relief – that he’s still – mingles with an attention that was beginning to wander.  But it’s only a moment.  The frenetic approach confuses speed with pace and the result is that the story feels way too long.  Well, let’s face it: it is too long.  It’s a one-damn-thing-after-another shaggy dog story, as if Dario Fo just allowed himself to go on and on, continually saying, as it were, ‘Wait, there’s more.’

But it is Mr Gome’s and director Wayne Pearn’s choice to run at the thing full tilt and, it seems at full length.  (Less is more?)  Surprising choices since Mr Gome was far more nuanced in, say, last year’s Mein Kampf and Mr Pearn’s most recent directorial outing, The Seafarer, was very fine.  Of course, this show is nothing like those two (the satire of Mein Kampf is rather more sophisticated), so maybe they decided it was horses for courses.  Meanwhile, the lighting design by Kieran Hanrahan and Nicholas Moloney is imaginative and effective.  They create storms, fire and fireworks and, most magical, under the sea.

Mr Fo – possibly best known for Accidental Death of an Anarchist and Can’t Pay?  Won’t Pay! – wrote Johan Padan in 1992 as a kind of riposte to the official commemorations of Columbus’ voyage of 1492.  His hero Johan Padan escapes the Inquisition in Italy, gets to Spain and sails with Columbus.  An opportunist, a shape-shifter, a survivor, an iconoclast, a root rat, he has no desire to conquer the natives; he’s curious, he’s open and kind-hearted and he just wants to eat, make love and stay alive.  A total contrast to the vicious, greedy, Catholic proselytizing conquistadors – which is the point, really.  That said, there’s another question here.  Apart from Mr Gome’s delight (so we’re told) in playing Johan, why mount this fantastical, what-could-have-been, alternative version of the conquest of the Americas now, in 2015?  Perhaps that wouldn’t matter if the show were wildly entertaining.  It could be more so.

Michael Brindley  

Image: Steve Gome. Photographer: Tim Williamson