Dario Fo & Franca Rame: Artful Laughter - Hardcover

Jenkins, Ronald Scott

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0893819476 ISBN 13: 9780893819477

Publisher: Aperture, 2001

Synopsis

The Italian actor, comedian, painter, and playwright Dario Fo is celebrated throughout Europe as a major figure in twentieth-century theater. Yet the Nobel Prize-winner's genius has never been manifested in a significant publication—until now.

A profile on Fo and his longtime partner and collaborator Franca Rame, written by Ron Jenkins, traces among many things, his unusual visual method of creating plays. These remarkable drawings, complemented by photographs that demonstrate Fo's unique physicality and elasticity, together constitute the principal visual elements of Artful Laughter which also includes excerpts from many of Dario Fo's plays.

About this title

About the Author

Dario Fo, Italy's leading contemporary performer. playwright, and director, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1997. His works have been translated and performed throughout the world.

Ron Jenkins is now the new director of Wesleyan's theater program. He holds a doctorate from Harvard and a Master's of Buffonery from the Ringling Brothere College for Clowns.

Reviews

The Nobel prize-winning Italian dramatist Fo and his frequent collaborator, Franca Rame, have been eliciting laughter and thought for almost half a century both as writers and as actors. They are modern commedia dell'arte entertainers with a social, political, and historical conscience. Jenkins's joint study is a much-needed critical review of their work. As Fo's official American translator, Jenkins has worked closely with the texts and the artists for several years. In this book, he communicates his deep commitment to and appreciation of their work, covering their biographies, artistic development, and philosophy and surveying many major works. With its extensive text samples, performance photographs, and reproductions of Fo's paintings, this book is both comprehensive and thoughtful. An anthology of plays, We Won't Pay! is the first volume in the collected works by this translator. The four plays collected here date from 1959 to 1986. In addition to the title play, the book includes "About Face," "Elizabeth: Almost by Chance a Woman," and "Archangels Don't Play Pinball." As translations, they are funny and agile and will be more accessible to Americans than earlier Fo translations, which were geared toward British audiences. Of course, since Fo is such an improviser, his actual performances may differ widely from one occasion to another and from what is presented here. These books belong together in public and academic theater collections. Thomas E. Luddy, Salem State Coll., MA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Aperture
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0893819476
• ISBN 13: 9780893819477
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 176