Teaching Material Fo.docx

1. Dario Fo was born on 24 March 1926 in San Giano, a small town on Lago Maggiore in the province of Varese. He is known for his political satires which are characterised by boisterous laughter, irony, and a subtle tragedy masked by comic actions. He had written and acted in numerous plays like Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Corpse for Sale, Archangels Don't Play Pinball, The Virtuous Burglar, Trumpets and Raspberries, The Open Couple to name a few. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1997.

Poetics of Dario Fo 1. Farce: A farce is a literary genre and type of comedy that makes use of highly

exaggerated and funny situations aimed at entertaining the audience. Farce is also a subcategory of dramatic comedy, which is different from other forms of comedy as it only aims at making the audience laugh. 2. Fo was known to use ‘didactic farce’ to represent his iconoclastic views on the role of theatre. He practiced an activist theatre that communicated directly with its audience and was based on forms and principles of popular culture and oral traditions. Fo experiments with a dialectic between past and the present in order to locate metaphors for contemporary situations and also to reclaim cultural spaces 3. At this juncture, for a clearer understanding of Fo’s poetics it would be beneficial to understand giullari and commedia dell’arte. Giullare were feudal jesters. They were the travelling players who roamed the region during 10th and 12th century and performed to the townspeople or peasants in public places. This was a familiar art form throughout Europe since similar figures can be identified such as the French and Spanish traditions. They were professional entertainers who would sing songs, dance and perform magic; such performance versatility was an important quality of their profession. Fo’s drama is highly expressive of gestures, reminiscent of the ‘Harlequin’s theatre’ which later became famous by its 18th century title, the ‘commedia dell’arte’. Originating around the sixteenth century, the true ‘commedia dell’arte’ play was not a piece of buffoonery but a tasteful entertainment, “well-balanced and sober, and witty and not full of impertinent trivialities….” It was also called ‘actors theatre’, for the entire theatrical structure rested on their shoulders: the actor-performer was author, producer, storyteller and director.

4. Fo however, adapted the above to suit the needs of his theatre. Fo views the ‘giullare’ as the articulate emissary of a non-articulate culture, voicing profound feelings of unfairness. His own comedy is not one of escapism but is a combination of laughter and anger . As a ‘giullare’, exposes the corruption among the dominant state apparatuses and the resultant oppression of the common people. The figure of guillare first appeared in his play titled Archangels Don’t Play Pinball. With reference to the ‘giullare’, Fo declared: For years I have been the jester for the bourgeise, hurling invectives in their faces which they responded to with ignorant laughter. Now I will become the jester for the proletariat. They will become the recipients of my invective. Through his drama, Fo critiqued the consumerist society and dedicated himself to the proletarian revolution. He brought theatre to a new audience in alternative venues, performing in factories, stadiums, university dormitories, and gymnasiums. Unlike realistic drama his plays are not based on mundane human reality but on wider concerns of the state which is reflected through a series of farcical situations aimed to expose the exercise of power by the bourgeois state. It can be mentioned here that at the centre of ‘commedia dell’arte’ performances are the four masks: Pantalone, Dottore, Harlequin (Arlechino), and Zanni, out of which the figure of the harlequin is of special interest in Fo’s context. This figure of fantasy was protean and transformative, also the one who had the mixture of rationality, intelligence, ignorance and simplicity. One can see the concept at work in Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist where depicted as the Maniac, the actions were based on a combination of dialogue and action, serious speeches and clownish tricks.

5. Another aspect of “Commedia dell’arte” that can be discerned in Fo’s works is the technique of dynamic improvisation. By this method the actors had the freedom to be themselves, their own authors. This technique brought novelty to each performance and made the text fluid and ever changing with every successive performance. It was for this reason that Italy’s censoring agencies closely followed his performances. This was a time when all scripts were to be submitted for approval. This step failed with Fo owing to this dynamic improvisation where Fo continuously changed his script during rehearsals and even during the run. These devices

allowed Fo to break away from the avant-garde tradition which he detested on the grounds of it being elitist, catering to a small group of the privileged and intellectuals. 6. The success of Fo’s theatre is in the satire ingrained with the slapstick and farce. It is this satire which promoted the tragic sense of the play. In this context, he writes: It is nearly a mechanical constant: where the satirical form does not have tragedy as its counterpart, the whole thing is transformed into clowning. Tragedy as a drama of hunger, as terror and refusal of violence in all senses, the problem of human respect, the problem of dignity and of the quality of life, the problem of relationship with death, the problem of love, of sexuality – this is the real catalyst of comic satire. This can effectively be read in the play in question where the death of an innocent man is upheld for critical examination by the spectators through mediated laughter. By this step he boldly calls out to the apparent protectors of law and order on their lackadaisical attitude leading to consequent loss of lives which is later concealed under manipulative discourses of care and concern. 7. Fo’s plays can be said to be anti-cathartic in nature, much on the lines of Epic Theatre of Bertolt Brecht. Fo was a strong proponent of ‘alienation effects’ which prevented undue absorption of the spectators in pure fiction. By doing away with ‘fourth wall’ in theater he encouraged interaction between the performers and the spectators, thus doing away with catharsis which was supposed to be the goal of Aristotelian theatre. Being a proponent of Marxist revolution, Fo urged the audience to be a part of the political struggle and contributed to the same by ensuring that the sp3ctators left the play changed. For this purpose he used raucous laughter as an ironical device for triggering serious thought. He was completely aware of the subversive power of laughter and its ability to assert the autonomy of an individual. According to him defiant laughter was an indication of critical awareness, imagination, and intelligence. He states: The people do not use the dramatic methods of the aristocracy, the one which grabs at heart and guts, but attempts to get there by a violent moment of laughter. Because laughter really does remain at the bottom of the mind, leaving sediment which cannot be wiped off. Because laughter helps avoid one of the worst dangers, which is catharsis. Thai is, whenever

someone cries, he frees himself of pain […] There is no need to add if there really is a divide between aristocratic theatre and people’s comic theatre, it has to do with the comic spirit of the one as against the pompous seriousness of the other. Now, the fact that this play contains a grotesque element, is quite deliberate. We do not wish to free from indignation people who come along – we say so at the end. We want their anger to stay inside them, to remain there and not be let go, we want it to become active, we want to force people to reason about the time we find ourselves in, and we want them to carry all this forward into the struggle.

The Case of Giuseppe Pinelli 1. There had been an explosion at the Banca dell’Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana in Milan. This explosion led to the loss of 16 people and about 90 were injured. There had been more explosions in Italy the same day. An hour previous to the aforesaid explosion, the police had been able to discover a bag full of explosives in another bank. However, their carelessness with the explosive led to its detonation which meant the loss of important evidence and thus exposed the incompetence of the law and other situation in Italy. During the process of investigation, the police wrongly arrested Giuseppe Pinelli and subjected to 72 hours of rigorous interrogation at the office of Inspector Calabresi. It was here it is said that Pinelli fell out of the window and apparently committed suicide. This incident provided intellectual fodder for the play under consideration. The press and the police had wrongly accused Oinelli and later another individual called Pietro Valpreda. To address the truth and make the people realise their error in blaming the wrong ideological group and consequently wrong persons. 2. Staying true to the facts of the investigations, Fo in his play was able to point out and ridicule the glaring inconsistencies in the in the investigation. There were six police officers in the office of Luigi Calabresi when Pinelli jumped out of the window. The statement about Pinelli’s shoe had actually been made by a constable called Vito Panessa. Similarly, other points were the presence of an open window at the height of winters. Fo also portrayed the existence of various contradictory accounts of Pinelli’s death and the statement of Chief of Police Marcello Guida, “I swear that we did not kill him.” The title

is also a satirical rendition of the conclusion drawn by magistrate Giovanni Caizzi who decreed that it was “an accidental death”. In this context, Fo writes: Let us take Accidental Death of an Anarchist, viewed, indeed catalogued, as a classic example of explicitly political theatre. Yes, there is the inquest conducted on an incident which occurred in the police station – the famous drop of the anarchist from the window. Perhaps a crime, a state crime, a murder they clumsily tried to pass off as suicide. But, the key to the plot is the fact that it is located in an entertaining situation. To unleash the comedy and satire, the character of a madman was chosen, a maniac with a passion for disguise who, through the logic of wild paradox, attempts to unhinge the logic of sane people. So as it happens the real madmen turn out to be the ‘normal’ folk. Mad and criminal into the bargain! This game of the grotesque, of paradox, of madness is one which could very well stand on its own, without the support of the political element.