THANK YOU, MR FO

As a young Italian graduate, one of the voices that I felt spoke to my generation was that of Dario Fo - dramatist, theatre and film director, actor, writer, painter, political activist, Nobel Laureate [1997] and so much more - who died today at the age of 90.  I continued to read the work of Dario Fo and his wife, Franca Rame and it never failed to surprise me and make me think. As I've said before, the literature of the 20th century asked the questions but did not, usually, provide the answers and Dario Fo asked the questions that politicians, in particular, did not wish to hear.

A stationmaster's son from Sangiano [Varese, Lombardy], Dario Fo joined Mussolini's Repubblica Sociale Italiana army at 17, a fact that would haunt him in later life. When he did talk about it, he said that he had joined the only Italian army in which he could enlist so as not to be deported to Germany to work. There was also a theory that he joined to deflect suspicion from falling upon his family, who were partisans.

After studying at the Brera Academy in Milan, Dario Fo joined Rai as an actor and satirical scriptwriter. He and Franca Rame wrote sketches together but their material was so often criticised by the Italian equivalent of the British "establishment" that the couple abandoned television for the theatre, founding their own company. Fo's theatrical solo piece Mistero Buffo was famously declared blasphemous by the Vatican and became all the more renowned for that. Other internationally well-known pieces by Fo include Morte accidentale di un anarchico [Accidental Death of an Anarchist] and Non si paga! Non si paga! [Can't Pay, Won't Pay].

Two books by Dario Fo which I have enjoyed recently are La figlia del papa [a biography of Lucrezia Borgia] which I reviewed here and Dario e Dio, a long interview in which he expounds his ideas about God - or the lack of such a being.  I especially like a passage in which Fo says that the God of the Old Testament "demands tests of love that not even a Sicilian ... [would expect]."

To a man who never stopped fighting, questioning, campaigning, surprising and making us laugh, I would like to say, "Thank you".

Dario Fo died on the day it was announced that Bob Dylan is to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. I think he would have approved.

In this Apple advertisement from 1997, Dario Fo narrates and Bob Dylan makes an appearance among the innovative thinkers of the last century:  

Video courtesy of La Stampa

BOOK REVIEW - "LA FIGLIA DEL PAPA"

La figlia del papa by Dario Fo
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am not sure what I think about the current fashion for writing historical fiction in the present tense and using conversation to carry the action forward. In English Philippa Gregory and Hilary Mantel do it superbly, if, in the latter case, rather academically.

However, Italian is a language in which the "vivid present " [the use of the present tense to recount past events] is more common and, as we are in the hands of the dramatist Dario Fo, we must surely expect mostly dialogue.

On the whole I feel he succeeds, though I got lost in some of the early dialogue concerning political intrigues, as I have in other books about the scheming Borgias.

Why did Fo choose to write about Lucrezia? Because, I would guess, there can be no doubt that she is one of the most maligned women in history and because her story of course lends itself to high drama. Fo portrays her as the political pawn that any woman in her position and time would have been but also as intelligent, politically astute, kind and even gentle. In an interview about the book, the Nobel laureate dramatist said that Lucrezia reminded him in some ways of his late wife, Franca Rame, because Franca, too, had taken up unpopular causes, helped the unfortunate and felt the need to intervene for the sake of social justice.

We cannot know to what extent Lucrezia was complicit in the outrageous plotting of her devious father, Pope Alexander VI and notorious brother, Cesare, but that she tried to save at least one of her three husbands from death at their hands is documented. As Duchess of Ferrara she was popular with locals and, at the end of her life, espoused charitable causes and set up a convent. We know that she had an affair with the poet Pietro Bembo and this is touchingly recounted in the book. It is commonly held that she also had an affair with Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquess of Mantova, but Fo - uniquely, according to him - refutes this, citing the fact that Lucrezia would have known that Francesco had syphilis and would not have risked it.

The book is beautifully illustrated but I find it strange that none of the images - some of which are famous and some of which are, I presume, by Fo himself - are accredited.

As far as I am aware, the book is currently being translated into several other languages so, if you are interested in Lucrezia and get a chance to read it, I suggest that you do so. You may conclude, as I did, that she was a product of her time and class, neither wholly bad nor as good as Fo would have her but, like most of us, somewhere in between.

View all my reviews

This review is also posted on Goodreads.

SABATO MUSICALE - PER FRANCA

This week's sabato musicale is dedicated to Franca Rame, the great actor, playwright and political activist, who died, at the age of 84, on Wednesday.

I was a young Italian graduate when I discovered the theatrical works of Franca Rame and her husband, Dario Fo and I felt that they spoke directly to me and for my generation. It has often been written that the literature of the twentieth century asks the questions rather than providing the answers but Franca Rame had some answers, too;  among them were being politically vigilant, questioning the policies of every political party and never giving up hope.

As the Mayor of Milan said at Franca Rame's lay funeral,

"She had the greatness of one who dreams and one who fights."

Franca Rame fought tirelessly for women and, some years after being abducted, tortured and raped by fascists in 1973, she courageously told her story in a monologue entitled Lo Stupro [The Rape], thus encouraging other Italian women to speak out against this most horrific of crimes. [ Rape was designated "an act of violence against women" in Italian law only in 1996].

At the funeral Dario Fo recited an unpublished monologue written by his wife:  in this story, Eve appears on earth not fashioned from Adam's rib but modelled by God in fine clay. When God asks the couple to choose between the fruits of immortality and the apple, Eve says,

"Just to have consciousness, consciousness, doubts and to experience love - come, death!"

Adam echoes her, saying,

"I have some doubts but I am very curious to discover the mystery of love, even if immediately afterwards I meet my end."

Dario Fo and Franca Rame's son, Jacopo, said, at the funeral,

"Dinosaurs are extinct and people with no love or respect for humanity will become extinct one day too.....I want you to go home with a little faith because, as my mother said, 'God exists and is a communist.' I would add that she is also female."

As Franca Rame had requested, women wore red and sang the partisan song, Bella Ciao at the funeral.  I would like to add my own thanks for the life and work of Franca Rame.