Playwright, designer, and actor, born in San Giano, N Italy. After working in radio and TV he founded, along with his wife, Franca Rame, a radical theatre company in 1959. His populist plays use the comic traditions of farce and slapstick, as well as surreal effects; best known are Morte accidentale di un anarchico (1970, Accidental Death of an Anarchist), Non si paga, non si paga (1974, Can't Pay, Won't Pay), and Female Parts (1981), one-woman plays written with his wife. Later works include Il Papa e la strega (1989, The Pope and the Witch) and Johan Padan a la descoverta de la Americhe (1992, Johan Padan and the Discovery of America). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997 and used the £550 000 to set up the charity The Nobel for the Disabled, although inquiries into its financial management were ongoing in 2005.
| Dario Fo | |
|---|---|
| Italian actor, playwright and theater director | |
| Born |
March 24, 1926 (age 80) Leggiuno-Sangiano, Italy |
Dario Fo (born March 24, 1926) is an Italian satirist, playwright, theater director and actor, and composer.
Biography
Early years
Fo was born in Leggiuno-Sangiano, in the province of Varese, near the eastern shore of Lago Maggiore. Fo learned storytelling from his maternal grandfather and Lombard fishers and glassblowers.
In 1940 Fo moved to Milan to study architecture at the Brera Art Academy, but World War II intervened. Near the end of the war, Fo was conscripted into the army of the Republic of Salò, but he escaped and managed to hide for the remainder of the war.
After the war, Fo continued his architecture studies in Milan. There Fo became involved in the piccoli teatri (small theaters) movement, in which he began to present improvised monologues.
Relationship with Franca Rame
In 1951 Fo met Franca Rame, daughter of a theatrical family, when they were working in the production of revue Sette giorni a Milano.
In 1953 he wrote and directed a satirical play Il dito nell'occhio.
Franca Rame and Dario Fo were married on June 24, 1954. Fo worked in the Piccolo Teatro in Milan but his satires suffered more censure although they remained popular.
In 1955 Fo and Rame worked in movie production in Rome. Fo became a screenwriter and worked for many productions, including those of Dino De Laurentiis. In 1956 Fo and Rame were together in the Carlo Lizzani's film Lo svitato.
In 1959 Fo and Rame returned to Milan and founded the Compagnia Dario Fo-Franca Rame (Dario Fo- Franca Rame Theater Company). Fo wrote scripts, acted, directed ,and designed costumes and stage paraphernalia.
1960s and success
In 1960 they gained national recognition with Gli arcangeli non giocano a flipper ("Archangels Don't Play Pinball") in Milan's Teatro Odeon. In 1961 Fo's plays began to play in Sweden and Poland.
In 1962 Fo wrote and directed a game show Canzonissima for RAI. Fo used the show to depict lives of commoners and it became a success. However, an episode about a journalist who was killed by Mafia annoyed politicians and Fo and Rame received death threats and were placed under police protection. Fo and Rame were effectively banned from RAI for the next 15 years.
In 1962 their play about Christopher Columbus annoyed right wing groups and caused violent attacks. The US government saw it as being disrespectful to President Johnson, and Fo was denied a US visa for years afterwards under the McCarran-Walter Act.
Fo gained international fame with "Archangels Don't Play Pinball" when it was performed in Zagreb (then in Yugoslavia).
In 1968 Fo and Rame founded Associazione Nuova Scena theater collective with movable stages. The collective had links to the Italian Communist Party, but Fo openly criticized also their methods and policies in his plays. Fo had never been a member but the conflict made Rame resign her membership of the party.
Dario Fo withdrew all rights to perform his plays in Czechoslovakia after the Warsaw Pact forces crushed Prague Spring in 1968 as a protest, and refused to accept cuts demanded by Soviet censors.
In 1969 Fo presented for the first time Mistero Buffo ("Comic Mystery"), a play of monologues based on the mix of medieval plays and topical issues.
1970s
However, in 1970 Fo and Rame left Nuova Scena due to political differences. When Fo criticized police in one of his plays, police raids and censorship increased. Fo was arrested when he tried to prevent police from stopping the play. In 1975 Fo wrote Fanfani rapito in support of for a referendum for the legalization of abortion. Fo was also nominated for the Nobel prize for the first time.
In 1976 a new RAI director invited Fo to do a new program, Il teatro di Dario (Dario's Theater).
In 1978 Fo made the third version of Mistero Buffo.
1980s, 1990s and the Nobel Prize
In 1980 Fo and family founded a retreat, the Libera Università di Alcatraz, in the hills near Gubbio and Perugia. The retreat is currently run by Jacopo Fo.
In 1981 Cambridge's America Repertory Theater invited Fo to perform in the Italian Theater Festival in New York. The United States Department of State initially refused to grant Fo's a visa but agreed to issue a six-day one in 1984 after various US writers protested against the ruling.
In 1981 Fo received a Sonning Award from Copenhagen University, 1985 a Premio Eduardo Award and in 1986 the Obie Award in New York and in 1987 Agro Dolce Prize.
On July 17, 1995, Fo suffered a stroke and lost most of his sight; Fo nearly recovered within a year.
In his works Dario Fo has criticized — among others — Catholic policy on abortion, political murders, organized crime, political corruption and Middle-East crisis.
In 2006, Dario Fo made a failed attempt to run for mayor of Milano, the most economically important city of Italy, finishing second in the primary election held by the centre-left The Union. Fo, who obtained over 20% of votes, was supported by the Communist Refoundation Party.
Fo's wife Franca Rame has been elected as senator for the Italy of Values party in the Italian general election held on April 9 and 10, 2006.
Creative Inspiration
Following the performance of Dario Fo's anti-Iraq war play 'Peace Mom' featuring Frances de la Tour as mother Cindy Sheehan, the UK theatre scene has become reinvigorated with a revival of Dario Fo-esque political satire, particularly in the Edinburgh Festival, which aim to inform all social classes of political oppression, rather than merely "preaching to the converted".
Skilled in gritty in-yer-face theatrical styles, and anarchistic stand-up comedy pioneered in the Eighties by British comedians, such as Ben Elton, and the Young Ones, fresh UK-based drama practicioners are creating outrageous no-holds barred satire aimed at criticising the political mainstream in a way, the mainstream terrestrial, cable, and satellite broadcast media, wouldn't dare permit.
Recalling the Vision of The Golden Rump in 1730s, which scandalously suggested that the Queen administered an enema to the King, fresh British theatrical producers are combining elements of shock horror and toilet humour to heavy strands of satire, in-order to "return theatre to the masses", paying the ultimate tribute to Dario Fo. Madcap musical Restart by the North of England's Komedy Kollective, is a fine example of the new generation of theatre inspired by Fo's distinctive satire.
Selected works
Note: These are the English names of the works
Archangels Don´t Play Pinball (1959) He Had Two Pistols with White and Black Eyes (1960) He Who Steals a Foot is Lucky in Love (1961) Mistero Buffo (Comic Mystery, 1969) The Worker Knows 300 Words, the Boss 1000, That's Why He's the Boss (1969) Accidental Death of an Anarchist (1970) Fedayin (1971) Can't Pay? Won't Pay! (1974) All House, Bed, and Church (1977) The Tale of a Tiger (1978) Trumpets and Raspberries (1981) The Open Couple (1983) Elizabeth: Almost by Chance a Woman (1984) One was Nude and One wore Tails (1985) Abducting Diana (1986) - Adapted to English in 1996 by Stephen Stenning The Zeedonk and the Shoe (1988) The Pope and the Witch (1989) A Woman Alone and Other Plays (1991) The Devil with Boobs (1997) The First Miracle of the Infant Jesus Orgasmo Adulto Escapes from the Zoo About Face
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