Dario Fo

Mistero Buffo is Dario Fo's one-man tour de force, in which he creates his own subversive version of Biblical stories. Infused with the rhythmic drive of a jazz improvisation, the immediacy of a newspaper headline, and the epic scope of a historical novel, Fo and his wife/collaborator Franca Rame have performed Mistero Buffo throughout the world to over 10 million people. One of the major theatrical artists of the twentieth century, Italy's Dario Fo was awarded the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature. Ron Jenkins' translations of Dario Fo have been performed across the country. He is the theater department chair at Wesleyan University.

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'The quality that makes Fo uniquely powerful ...[is] the ability to wring wild laughter out of insidious corruption' Guardian 'Simon Nye's witty translation updates and relocates the play ...suitably close to contemporary England. Fo is that rare thing, a far-left playwright with a popular, comic touch. And his stinging attack upon the black arts of government cover-up, manipulation and mendacity could not be more timely' Evening Standard In its first two years of production, Dario Fo's controversial farce, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, was seen by over half a million people. It has since been performed all over the world and is widely recognised as a classic of modern drama. A sharp and hilarious satire on political corruption, it concerns the case of an anarchist railway worker who, in 1969, 'fell' to his death from a police headquarters window. This version of the play was premiered at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in February 2003. Commentary and notes by Joseph Farrell.

Dario Fo's classic farce Accidental Death of an Anarchist was a sensation when it premiered in Italy in 1970. Based on the story of a political activist who "fell" to his death from the window of a police station, the original production was seen by over half a million people. This incisive satire on police corruption, media manipulation and political shenanigans is here translated by Simon Nye.This version of Accidental Death of an Anarchist premiered at the Donmar Warehouse, London in February 2003. "A marvellous concept: a zany political farce..." Michael Billington, Guardian"Fo's play absorbs social indignation into mainstream Italian comedy" The Times

Dario Fo is Italy's leading contemporary playwright and performer, renowned throughout the world for his dazzling radical satires Can't Pay Won't Pay is set in Milan, but "the problems are desperately familiar...Fo-faced farce wears a broad smile and proceeds at breathtaking speed" (Michael Coveney, Financial Times); Elizabeth "It portrays our last Tudor monarch in Fo's characteristically rollicking vein...A triumph for Gillian Hanna as translator" (Marin Hoyle, Financial Times); The Open Couple and An Ordinary Day, written with Franca Rame, deal wittily with the fate of women in a society in which both the social system in which they live and its dominant ideology are shaped by men.

Throughout the 1980s, Dario Fo, Italy's best known and most provocative satirical playwright, and his wife Franca Rame, the celebrated actress and feminist, conducted a series of performance-seminars around the world on the subject of acting. In places as diverse as London's Riverside Studios, Rome's Teatro Argentina and Perugia's Free University of Alcatraz, Fo and Rame have revealed to rapt audiences the many facets of the actor's art - his or her 'Tricks of the Trade'. Tracing the life of the comic performer back to the itinerant jongleur and the skillful improvisations of later commedia dell'arte troupes, Fo's genius as both a player and synthesiser of the historical past allows him to resurrect before our eyes and ears a shadow performer upon whom all actors unwittingly base their work. Using mime, masks, pieces of text, dance, action and snatches from songs, Fo and Franca Rame consolidate many months of their lecture demonstrations into a 'Six Day' workshop, a staged demonstration that is also a Fo-on-Fo one-man show. It is released to coincide with the paperback release of Dario Fo's autobiography "My First Seven Years Plus a Few More".

In its first two years of production in Italy, Dario Fo's notorious Accidental Death of an Anarchist was seen by over half a million people. It has since been performed all over the world, and become a classic of twentieth-century drama. A sharp and hilarious satire on police corruption, it concerns the case of an anarchist railway worker who, in 1969, 'fell' to his death from a police headquarters window. 'I ought to warn you that the author of this sick little play, Dario Fo, has the traditional, irrational hatred of the police common to all narrowminded left-wingers and so I shall, no doubt, be the unwilling butt of endless anti-authoritarian jibes.' (Inspector Bertozzo, Central Italian Police HQ) 'A marvellous concept: a zany political farce.' (Michael Billington) This edition has been adapted by Gavin Richards from Gillian Hanna's translation and features an introduction by Stuart Hood and a preface by Dario Fo.

'We know all too well that we're up to our necks in the shit, and it is for this very reason that we walk with our heads held high!' An irrepressible fraudster known only as the Maniac is brought into Police Headquarters just as the officers are preparing for a judicial review of the recent 'accidental' death of a suspect in custody. Outwitting his captors, the Maniac dupes them into performing a farcical recreation of the incident, exposing the absurd corruption and terrifying idiocy at the heart of the system. Dario Fo and Franca Rame's riotous satire has been widely performed around the world since its premiere in 1970. Tom Basden's acclaimed adaptation was first performed at Sheffield Theatres in 2022, directed by Daniel Raggett, and starring Daniel Rigby as the Maniac. The production transferred to the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre in 2023, before moving to the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London's West End.

Avtor etogo romana, izvestnyj italjanskij pisatel i dramaturg Dario Fo, v 1997 godu byl udostoen Nobelevskoj premii po literature. Ironichnyj i zanimatelnyj, roman "Doch pontifika" posvjaschen sudbe Lukretsii Bordzhia i, postroennyj na strogo dokumentalnoj osnove, po-novomu osveschaet obraz etoj neodnoznachnoj i po-svoemu blestjaschej lichnosti na fone istoricheskikh realij epokhi Italjanskogo Vozrozhdenija.

'We know all too well that we're up to our necks in the shit, and it is for this very reason that we walk with our heads held high!' An irrepressible fraudster known only as the Maniac is brought into Police Headquarters just as the officers are preparing for a judicial review of the recent 'accidental' death of a suspect in custody. Outwitting his captors, the Maniac dupes them into performing a farcical recreation of the incident, exposing the absurd corruption and terrifying idiocy at the heart of the system. Dario Fo and Franca Rame's riotous satire, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, has been widely performed around the world since its premiere in 1970. Tom Basden's hilarious, bang-up-to-date adaptation was first performed at Sheffield Theatres in 2022.

Lucrezia Borgia is one of the most vilified figures in modern history. Daughter of the notorious pope, she was twice betrothed before the age of 11 and thrice married, and according to rumours had several lovers, including perhaps her own brother and father. Painted by turns as murderous, incestuous femme fatale, or as victim and plaything in the hand of her ruthless relatives, the real Lucrezia was probably none of these. In The Pope's Daughter, Fo reveals her humanity and passion for life as well as her dark side, showing her as a modern woman for her time.

Dramatic Comedy / Characters: 5 male 4 femaleScenery: Interior/ExteriorThis classic imparts an indelible picture of Chekhov's Russia and of his rich bittersweet and deeply human characters. "Blessedly free both of Slavisms and of up-to-date colloquialisms." -New York Times"Simply wonderful." -Boston Globe"Mamet's adaptation is true and faithful to the Russian master in both tone and content." -Cape Cod Times

An uproarious new version of Dario Fo's frenetic farce Can't Pay? Won't Pay! which, although set in Italy, has an all too familiar ring to it. Housewives Antonia and Margherita, fed up with high prices in the supermarket, take matters into their own hands and start shoplifting. Keen to keep their light-fingered antics from their husbands, Giovanni and Luigi - not to mention the police - the women are forced to resort to more and more inventive hiding places, and more and more elaborate cover stories, in this legendary comedy. Nobel prize winner Dario Fo is Italy's leading contemporary playwright, renowned for his hilarious satires including Accidental Death of an Anarchist. He has re-written his classic farce Can't Pay? Won't Pay! to take into account the global banking crisis and this translation, by world-leading Fo scholar Joseph Farrell, hints at UK current affairs too, including the credit crunch and MPs' expenses scandal. Although first written in 1970, this updated farce is still very relevant to today's state of affairs.

Nord-Italia, 1930-tallet. Boken er en skildring av forfatterens oppvekst i Valtravaglia, kalt Flaggermusenes by. I forfatterens barndomsskildring myldrer det av eventyrlige mennesker og mer eller mindre sannferdige hendelser.

#Der Nobelpreistr?ger Dario Fo, einer der bekanntesten und international erfolgreichsten Dramatiker, erinnert sich an seine Kindheit und Jugend. Mit einem scharfen Auge f?r die komischen Seiten des Lebens in allen Situationen beschreibt er sein Elternhaus am Ufer des Lago Maggiore, seine Begegnung mit der Malerei und der Literatur und erz?hlt von kleinen Schurkereien und gro?en Taten in bewegten Zeiten.Das Leben schreibt noch immer die besten Geschichten. Und Dario Fo erz?hlt in komÜdiantischer Meisterschaft die skurrile Geschichte seines Lebens. Geboren zwischen Eisenbahnwaggons - sein Vater ist der geachtete Stationsvorsteher Felice - w?chst er an den Ufern des Lago Maggiore auf. Ein zauberhafter Ort, der allerdings seinen Bewohnern harte kÜrperliche Arbeit und Entbehrungen abverlangt. Das Leben in Armut und inmitten kleiner Gaunereien wird sp?testens bei Kriegsausbruch zum Kampf ums ?berleben. Zun?chst aus der Perspektive des kleinen Jungen erz?hlt, der fest davon ?berzeugt ist, dass die D?cher in der nahe gelegenen Schweiz aus Schokolade sind, berichtet Fo ?ber erste Begegnungen mit der Malerei und dem Volkstheater. Schon fr?h zeigt sich eine klare politische Haltung, die sp?ter im Widerstand gipfelt. Doch der Lebensk?nstler Fo sieht immer auch die komischen Seiten.

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Dario Fo is one of the world's most important contemporary playwrights, forging subversive wit and unusual linguistic experimentation into a comedy of complete originality. The Peasants' Bible is a collection of five monologues drawn from Italian folklore but filtered through Fo's delightfully singular lens-for example, an Adam and Eve who are passionately entwined like peas in a pod; a race between two classes of men struggling for power that resembles the legend of the Hare and the Tortoise-to form a Bible of the common man. In The Story of the Tiger, we find a Fourth Army soldier injured fighting Chiang Kai-shek's army, saved from starvation by being suckled by an enormous tiger, who then comes back to defeat Kai-shek by using model tigers in combat. Together the pieces are an extraordinary addition to Fo's body of work.