Fo, Dario

Fo, Dario (1926– ), Italian dramatist, actor-manager, and mime, who began his career by collaborating in satirical revues, among them A Finger in the Eye (1953) and Certified in Possession of Their Faculties (1954). With his wife Franca Rame he founded in 1957 a company which staged mainly his own pieces, including Arch-angels Don't Play the Pin-Tables (1959) and He had Two Pistols with Black-and-White Eyes (1960). After the abolition of censorship in 1962 Fo's hitherto good-natured comedies adopted more explicitly left-wing themes. He attacked capitalism and government corruption in such plays as Seventh: Thou Shalt Steal a Little Less (1964) and It's Always the Devil's Fault (1965). In 1967 he established his own group, La Nuova Scena, to seek working-class audiences. It was succeeded by the co-operative group La Comune, formed in 1970, for which he wrote the highly successful socialist farces Accidental Death of an Anarchist (1970; London, 1979; NY, 1984), about the fall from a window of a prisoner in custody; and We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay! (1974; NY, 1980), seen in London as Can't Pay? Won't Pay! (1981). In Trumpets and Raspberries (1981; London, 1984) a car worker is confused with his boss after plastic surgery. Fo also wrote a number of short one-woman plays with Franca Rame, groups of which were performed in London (1981, 1983, 1989) and New York (1983). His remarkable one-man show Mistero buffo (1969) has been widely performed.