Livro indispensável e uma referência necessária para todos os que se interessam por conhecer as técnicas da arte teatral, mais especificamente do teatro popular, que conseguem sensibilizar o espectador e motivá-lo a ficar atento à sequência da narrativa dramática. É também uma obra que alia o conhecimento vivido dessas técnicas ao contexto mais amplo da cultura, mostrando como os procedimentos da representação descortinam uma realidade mais densa do que aquela veiculada pela simples informação.
Dario Fo was an Italian satirist, playwright, theatre director, actor, and composer. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997. In 2007 he was ranked Joint Seventh with Stephen Hawking in The Telegraph's list of 100 greatest living geniuses. His dramatic work employed comedic methods of the ancient Italian commedia dell'arte, a theatrical style popular with the proletarian classes. He owned and operated a theatre company with his wife, the leading actress Franca Rame. Dario Fo died in Milan on October 13th 2016, at the age of 90.
essentially a transcript, edited for clarity, of a six-day lecture event by the playwright-actor-clown power diad Fo & Rame. a sweeping history cum how-to of comedic popular theatre & technique — of particular delight to me bc i've had the fortune of training in some of the material, and can imagine the panache it came with onstage :) it's dense with information in tiny type, + no small amount of windbaggery which elicited the occasional eye roll or snooze from moi, but what can you expect from a teacher, letalone a performer in workshop! surprised tbh that it received "immediate critical acclaim," bc if i didn't know something about the world of clown i would find it all pretty opaque. but! it conveys a lot of great craft-wisdom and welcome prole sentiment that rises above the shop talk
Fo certainly knows his stuff but I don’t think it translates all that well in book form. It’s not the most intellectual or informative book for someone trying to understand the motives of his plays but still has a lot of merit.
Nevertheless, I’m a big fan of Fo and will be reading more.
Dario Fo svela la complessità dietro il mestiere di attore con sapienza e maestria. Il volume, diviso in paragrafi ognuno con un titolo a sé, è un vero e proprio reportage della dignità dell'attore, molto spesso erroneamente ridotta al ruolo che interpreta.
Probablemente el libro de teoría teatral más entretenido que he leído hasta la fecha, pero también uno de los más caóticos. El título de "manual" no resulta nada apropiado, ya que en realidad es una recopilación de charlas en las que se encadenan consejos, demostraciones, anécdotas, comentarios sobre textos, apuntes de historia del teatro, fundamentos antropológicos...Un pupurri maravilloso, pero poco preceptivo y poco operativo.