Plays 1: Mistero Buffo / Accidental Death of an Anarchist / Trumpets and Raspberries / The Virtuous Burglar / One Was Nude and One Wore Tails

by Dario Fo, Stuart Hood (Editor)

Mistero Buffo, or The Comic Mysteries, is based on research into mediaeval mystery plays; The Accidental Death of an Anarchist concerns the "accidental" (or not) death of an anarchist railwork who "fell" (or was pushed) to his death from a police headquarters window in 1969; Trumpets and Raspberries is "A deeply subversive farce" (The Guardian) in which the boss of Italy's biggest car manufacturer FIAT, is mistaken for a left wing terrorist.

Genres: Drama, Plays, Fiction, Italian Literature, Theatre

400 pages, Paperback

First published November 3, 1992

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Phillip · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fo is a comic genius. Comedy is a really difficult form, I think, because it requires a complex balance between utilizing the recognizable and the well-worn gags that have been comedy's stock-and-trade since ancient times, but it requires putting them together in a new, interesting, and innovative way to say something with the comic form. This is why so many 'comedy' movies produced by Hollywood are terrible. Yes, they may make us laugh, but they rarely if ever make us think, which is what good comedy is supposed to do (and I realize I am drawing a potentially elitist distinction between good and bad comedy, somewhat along the lines of the high-versus-pop-art distinction, and I am not entirely comfortable with this binary). Fo utilizes the tools of comedy, including all the fart jokes, sexual innuendo, puns, double meanings and so on, and he uses these as tools to comment on the state of Italian politics, morality, and hypocrisy, as well as to comment on communal methods of making theatre and making meaning through performance and shared cultural artifacts (this is especially evident in Mistero Buffo).

Mistero Buffo: https://youtu.be/PgribOTRYVE
Accidental Death of an Anarchist: https://youtu.be/HEjesw0YtLU
Trumpets and Raspberries: https://youtu.be/4td6OT-Ta7I
The Virtuous Burglar: https://youtu.be/Vh38DaC31I4
One Was Nude and One Wore Tails: https://youtu.be/0k-0eDmSAIo

[Max McKune · Rating 5 out of 5]

The pinnacle of political comedy, taking the most vile undercurrents of society and laying them bare through the common language of farce and humor. The majority of satirical comedy, especially nowadays, has no real teeth, and reading something as genuinely funny and biting as this is refreshing. Fo and Rame, in their work as militant theater artists in Italy, assume the historical role of the Jongleur as conveyed by Fo in Mistero Buffo and serve as outside voices reflecting the audience’s own resentment of the rulers back at them, making it plain who is responsible for the poverty and violence that plagues them. Brecht, when speaking of Mother Courage, stated that he chose to set it in the past so that people would not cloud the politics of the text with their own biases about WWII, and while Fo chooses to portray current events, the farcical approach allows for a similar remove that encourages that Brechtian analysis of the class dynamics at play. Politics aside, this shit is just genuinely really funny, especially The Accidental Death of an Anarchist and The Virtuous Burglar, and I really hope to put those two on myself. This shit hits my perfect sweet spot of what theater should be, politically charged, biting, lively, and genuinely entertaining.

[Monica Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Speaking specifically for The Accidental death of an anarchist here..

I think the play is amazing. To begin, it was so funny, but also touched on real political issues around the world, even still to this day..

I personally think that if you enjoyed reading an inspector calls, that’s how this play kind of reads, it’s not the same themes, but it has the same elements where the maniac/the inspector would come in..

Deffo give this a read if you want to have a laugh and enjoy some social commentary..

[Jenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Impossible to capture on the page the wit and energy of performance, and by all accounts Fo was a magnificent performer. These plays are witty enough in the reading, and full of satiric social commentary that, perhaps unfortunately as it means political fairness will continue to elude us, is never going to get stale, so I felt wistful about not being able to go see this in the theater. Next stop you-tube, I guess!

[Victoria Sigsworth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to say having seen other works of Fo on the stage I read this before deciding whether to go to this one. This was just not in the same league. It set off well but I then found it all became entrenched in the same kind of joke and seems to repeat itself . I can fully understand why this work gets adapted to suit a time in the world or a place as it probably works better. I am sad to say this was quite hard work.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not to my taste. Political farce, but lacking in subtlety - possibly lost in translation or due to my lack on knowledge of italian politics of that time.
I am led to believe that this was something of a classic though, so it is likely that I have just "not got it"...

[PS · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Virtuous Burglar in particular is sheer genius.

[McTavish · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Excellent. It reads like something out of a Hitchcock film." Man, I'm literally the maniac.

[Scott Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why would I like these plays? That is a question I keep asking myself given I am not normally attracted to Italian socialist (communist), cynical playwrights. However Dario Fo's plays, albeit with excellent cynical humor, depict the decrepit hypocrisy that surrounds much of organized religion and society. My favorite play is “Mistero Buffo.” The Buffo is somewhat like the town clown, or perhaps more accurately, the ancient court jester who allows us to laugh at ourselves and the predicament in which we find ourselves within society. The concept of the court jester goes back to medieval and Renaissance court traditions. So does the “art of comic acting, of working with masks, of mime and of grammelot.” One of my favorite parts of the play is called “Blind Man and the Cripple,” the following are examples of the stimulating lines THE BLIND MAN: What are they doing? THE CRIPPLE: They have tied him to a column . . . And they’re beating him . . . Oh, how they are beating, they’re so worked up. THE BLIND MAN: Oh, poor boy . . . Why are they beating him? What has he done to them, for them to get so worked up? THE CRIPPLE: He has come to tell them about loving each other, about being equal, like so many brothers. But make sure that you don’t get taken with compassion for him, because you’ll run a great danger of getting miracled. THE BLIND MAN: No, no, I’m not feeling compassion . . . That Christ doesn’t mean anything to me . . . I don’t know the man. But tell me, what are they doing now . . . ? THE CRIPPLE: They’re spitting on him . . . Dirty pigs, they’re spitting in his face. THE BLIND MAN: And what’s he doing . . . ? What is he saying, this poor holy son of God? THE CRIPPLE: He’s not saying anything, he’s not speaking, he’s not fighting back, and he doesn’t even look angry with those wicked people . . . THE BLIND MAN: And how’s he looking at them? THE CRIPPLE: He’s looking at them with looks of pity."

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the power of theater: making deeply passionate political statements so damn funny that ever the dissenters need to laugh. Fo turns socio-polical/religious themes and presents them in the classical form of farce to make the absurdity of contemporary hubris pop even more.

[Sarah]

via http://alumni.dartmouth.edu/NewsandFe...