Accidental Death Of An Anarchist

Dario Fo was born March 24, 1926 in the small town of San Giano, Italy. His father was an amateur actor, a station master, and a socialist. Fo’s mother has been described as a woman of “great imagination.” As a child, Fo spent many days at his grandfather’s farm in Lomellina. During his visits, Fo would join his grandfather selling produce, where he met a diverse group of people and discovered a love of storytelling. As he came of age, Fo spent time learning about the Italian oral storytelling tradition from fishers and glass blowers. Dario Fo quickly discovered a passion and talent for writing, storytelling, and entertainment.

In 1940, Dario attended the Brera Art Academy, where he studied architecture, but his education was interrupted by World War II. Conscripted into Benito Mussolini’s fascist Italian army, he eventually managed to escape and join his parents, who worked for the resistance while hiding in a small attic room. Fo’s father smuggled Jewish scientists and captured British soldiers to relative safety in Switzerland. Fo’s mother was known to treat and nurse the wounded (“Dario Fo.” The Nobel Prize, 2023).

After World War II ended, Fo returned to his studies but quickly shifted from architecture to theater, using his architectural skills to help him with stage design. From there, he began devising monologues and collaborating with cabaret venues. As he continued his path on stage, Fo became adept at taking on many important roles for theatrical production, including stage manager, director, actor, writer, and designer. In the post-war era, Italian theater began to shift, embracing “small theatres” and a more contemporary, popular style. Fo went to as many theatrical productions as possible despite not being able to afford the tickets. He was able to make many friends in the theater world by regaling them with the stories he’d heard growing up.

Eventually, Fo’s work caught the eye of Franco Parenti, a producer and director for an annual summer variety show in Milan. Fo worked with Parenti for four years, becoming one of the director’s closest collaborators. While part of Parenti’s production, Fo saw a photo of his future wife and collaborator, Franca Rame. Franca Rame was a famous comedic actress in her own right. The two met in person for the first time in 1951 while they were both acting in a production of “Sette giorni a Milano.” Once Fo and Rame married in 1954, the two began working on comedy sketches for the Italian TV show “Canzonissima,” which made them popular household names. Together from 1958-1970, they founded three theater companies: Campania Dario Fo-France Rame, Nuova Scena, and Collettiv Teatrale La Commune.

In March of 1974, Franca Rame was kidnapped, tortured, and raped by a group of fascists. Their goal was to punish Rame and Fo for their activism and outspoken criticism of fascists, police brutality, and prison conditions in Italy. It was later found that the fascist group had ties to the Federal Italian Police. However, despite these attempts to silence and punish Rame and Fo, the two were upheld by a nation outraged by what happened. In May of that year, Dario Fo held a lecture titled “Basta con I fascisti” or “Enough with the Fascists” in English, that was dedicated to the Italian Youth during that tumultuous time in Italian history (“Dario Fo”).

Fo and Rame developed a signature style combining the centuries-old tradition of Italy’s commedia dell’ arte with what Fo called “unofficial leftism.” This style is at the heart of Accidental Death of an Anarchist. Throughout his career, Dario Fo’s work was often considered controversial, blending styles and delighting and offending audiences around the world. The Catholic Church saw his work as blasphemous, with its vulgar depictions of Biblical and religious characters, figures, and themes. Not only were traditionally conservative or right-wing groups critical of Fo, but so were communists. In 1968, when the Soviet Union invaded former Czechoslovakia to halt democratic reforms in the country, Fo withdrew any production rights to his work being performed there. Dario Fo and Franca Rame were repeatedly denied entry to the United States because they were members of the Italian Communist Party. Finally, in 1984, they were allowed entry to the United States for the Broadway production of Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Gussow, Mel. “Dario Fo, Whose Plays Won Praise, Scorn and a Nobel, Dies at 90.” The New York Times, 13 Oct. 2016).

With Rame, Fo wrote over 80 plays in his lifetime, many of which have been translated dozens of times and produced worldwide. In 1997, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for “International Acknowledgment” for his contributions to “twentieth-century theatre.” Dario passed away in 2016 at the age of 92, in Milan, Italy (“Dario Fo”).