Edinburgh Festival Celebrates Dario Fo

The Nobel Prize-winning and world-renowned Dario Fo might just be the most frequently performed living playwright in the world. The Italian polymath is also recognised for his work as an actor, an author and much more besides. “What I find most astonishing about the man is the sheer breadth of his abilities,” says Professor Joseph Farrell, an expert on the life of Fo who has not only seen the man perform, but met him, visited his studio in Milan and written a biography of his life. Now, he is one of five involved in organising a Fo-Fest that will be coming to Edinburgh in the autumn. The festival will take place in October, comprising an exhibition, performances, readings and discussions in Edinburgh venues. Its ambitious range mirrors the range of the man himself. 

Politics and Dario Fo: New targets

This year, on 24 March, Fo will celebrate his 90th birthday, and he continues to work. “Even though he suffered a stroke some years ago which has impeded his writing and reading, he’s now dictating works on a whole range of subjects, some of which are new plays, and Silvio Berlusconi has become a new favourite target of his,” says Farrell, highlighting the continuing trend for farce, satire and leftist political views to characterise Fo’s work.

“He keeps on performing in the theatre. He’s written on green politics; the ecological question has now come to interest him very considerably. He has taken up other heroes from the past, for example St Francis of Assisi has appeared in many of his works and he’s a great admirer of the present Pope. Latterly, at the age of 88, he wrote his first novel. He’s now written five — two of them were co-authored. One of the times I went to see him in his house in Milan I discovered him in one room dictating text to a young man who was inputting it into a computer. In a room nearby there were two young women who were putting colour onto Dario’s painting. He was running basically a Renaissance studio in Milan.” This level of continuing work is, as Farrell frequently describes it, “astonishing.” 

(Continues below)

---

More on Scottish festivals in 2016:

 Ghostface Killah joins Restless Natives line-up

---

To Farrell, one of the reasons Fo’s work is so successful in Scotland is the strong political stance it takes. “He’s unquestionably dissident, left wing, someone who satirises, who pokes fun continuously at the authorities, who takes up the side of the oppressed and those who have been unjustly treated. Very much on the left, therefore a nuisance to the authorities — to the established powers — whether that’s the church, state or in society. One of his most famous plays is The Accidental Death of an Anarchist, based on a true story after a bombing in Milan in 1967. What’s remarkable about this play is that Fo makes this tragic event a farce, a work which he calls counter information where he is forcing people to reconsider it, but it is a farce of a type which I have called a didactic; a genre which he has basically developed on his own. In other words his farces are not escapist, they are not the same as the French farce or indeed Gilbert and Sullivan. There’s a core of deep seriousness in his farces.”

It is the combination of this Commedia Del Arte or Music Hall style of performance mixed with politics that Farrell sees as resonating with Scottish audiences, giving the example of Borderline’s productions of The Virtuous Burglar, directed by Morag Fullerton and starring Barbara Rafferty and Juliet Cadzow, in 1988 and Mistero Buffo with Robbie Coltrane in 1990. 

Franca Rama and Fo's return to Scotland

It is not only Fo’s work alone, but his work with his late wife Franca Rame who died two years ago which has captured the world. “She had a history in the theatre which he did not, her family had been touring actors of a very Italian sort going back over several generations, possibly going back into the 18th century. Improvisation was their stock-in-trade, which is essential to Italian theatre in a way that it’s not in other countries. He learned a lot from her. They put on feminist theatre, although she wouldn’t use the word, she said that feminist theatre was very dull, very tedious. She was also a socialist and she said that men suffered in society and she couldn’t be bothered with extreme feminists who did not look at wider discussions of exploitation in society. However, she was a feminist and she did become a feminist icon in many countries.”

Despite this past success of Fo, it is clear that it is past time for his work to return to Scotland, especially in this his ninetieth year. But, as Farrell has said, it is not just in the theatre that Fo’s talents lie. “I’m very proud to be able to say that as part of the festival there’ll be an art exhibition that’s the first in Britain of his works. I will be going to Italy shortly to do the selection of the paintings with a woman called Frances Rifkin (another of the festival’s organisers). The second aspect will be productions of works by Scottish companies which will be in some way inspired by the works of Franca Rame and Dario Fo and the third aspect is two personal appearances by Dario – he’s coming back,” says Farrell with obvious excitement. “I’m translating a book just now which will be called New Tricks of the Trade which will be published by Methuen and this is the basis of the performance that he’s going to give.”