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Dario Fo, the Commune, and the Battle for the Palazzina Liberty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Tom Behan
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Abstract

In 1974 Dario Fo and ‘The Commune’ theatre collective were forced to engaged in a political battle to secure control of the ‘Palazzina Liberty’, a nondescript building once a market canteen, set in the middle of a park in a south-eastern suburb of Milan. Here, Tom Behan describes how mass support, derived from a revolutionary ideology, secured The Commune's control over the building for several years. The relationship between this political movement and the political content of the shows performed at the Palazzina is then discussed with reference to Can't Pay? Won't Pay!, Fanfani Kidnapped, and Mum's Marijuana is the Best. Tom Behan, is Senior Lecturer in Italian at the University of Kent at Canterbury. His article began life as part of the research for his Dario Fo: Revolutionary Theatre (Pluto Press, 2000), and forms a companion piece to ‘The Megaphone of the Movement: Dario Fo and the Working Class, 1968–79’, published in The Journal of European Studies, XXX (September 2000).

Type
Research Article
Information
New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , May 2001 , pp. 99 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2001

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References

Notes and References

1. Valentini, Chiara, La storia di Dario Fo (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1997), p. 155Google Scholar.

2. See Mitchell, Tony, Dario Fo: People's Court Jester (London: Methuen, 1999), p. 95–8Google Scholar.

3. Interview with Emilio Orsino. Born in 1944, Orsino has attended most of Fo's plays since the mid-1960s.

4. Interview with Piero Sciotto. Born in 1943, Sciotto worked closely with Fo from 1973 to 1980, and again from 1984 to 1992.

5. Unless otherwise stated, all quotations in this section are taken from leaflets and letters written by The Commune and held in Fo and Rame's personal archives. The main series is named ‘Palazzina Liberty’, and the specific folder is 17B, January–April 1974.

6. Binni, Lanfranco, Attento te…! Il teatro politico di Dario Fo (Verona: Bertani, 1975), p. 185Google Scholar.

7. Il Manifesto, 2 April 1974.

8. Conversion to a contemporary amount in sterling has been done by using a table of historical coefficients published monthly by the financial newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, called ‘Indici Mensili’. The December 1999 edition was used, with lire converted into sterling using an exchange rate of 3,000 lire to the pound.

9. Il Giorno, 4 April 1974.

10. Binni, Attento te…!, p. 184.

11. Ibid., p. 186, and ‘Palazzina Liberty’, folder 17B.

12. Rame, Franca, interviewed in Com Nuovi Tempi, No. 13 (9 04 1978)Google Scholar, cited in Colombo, Enzo and Piraccini, Orlando, Pupazzi con rabbia e sentimento (Milan: Libri Scheiwiller, 1998), p. 192Google Scholar.

13. Corriere d'informazione, 2 May 1974.

14. Il Milanese, 19 May 1974.

15. Binni, Attento te…!, p. 189.

16. Servire il popolo, 1 June 1974.

17. Settegiorni, 9 June 1974. It is unclear whether De Carolis was already a member of the secret P2 Freemasons' lodge at this time, given that membership only became public knowledge in 1981.

18. Brescia Oggi, 14 June 1974.

19. Quotidiano dei lavoratori, 22 December 1974; Il Giorno, 23 December 1974.

20. Binni, Attento te…!, p. 129.

21. Corriere della Sera, 4 October 1974, cited in Bisicchia, Aldo, Teatro a Milano 1968–1978 (Milan: Mursi, 1979), p. 111Google Scholar.

22. Interview with Piero Sciotto.

23. See Behan, Tom, Dario Fo: Revolutionary Theatre (London: Pluto Press 2000), p. 85–91Google Scholar.

24. Corriere della Sera, 4 October 1974, cited in Bisicchia, Teatro a Milano 1968–1978, p. 111.

25. Cited in Meldolesi, Claudio, Su un comico in rivolta (Rome: Bulzoni, 1978), p. 202Google Scholar.

26. Ginsborg, Paul, A History of Contemporary Italy (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990), p. 6–7Google Scholar.

27. Ibid., p. 371.

28. Cited in Mitchell, Dario Fo: People's Court Jester, p. 140.

29. See Harman, Chris, The Fire Last Time: 1968 and After (London: Bookmarks, 1988), p. 199–200Google Scholar.

30. Bobbio, Luigi, Storia di Lotta Continua (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1988), p. 194Google Scholar, note 46.

31. Monicelli, Mario, L'ultrasinistra in Italia, 1968–1978 (Bari-Rome: Laterza, 1978), p. 60–1Google Scholar.

32. Throughout the period from 1970 to 1982 the Red Brigades never had more than 500 members at any one time. See Moss, David, The Politics of Left-Wing Violence in Italy, 1969–1985 (London: Macmillan, 1989), p. 66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33. Cited in Lumley, Robert, States of Emergency (London: Verso, 1990), p. 142Google Scholar.

34. Valentini, La storia di Dario Fo, p. 167.

35. Panorama, 3 February 1976.

36. Fo, Dario, La marjuana della mamma è la più bella (Verona: Bertani, 1976), p. 66Google Scholar. Interestingly enough, this passage is cut from what is now the standard version: Fo, Dario, Le commedie di Dario Fo, Vol. 12 (Turin: Einaudi, 1998)Google Scholar.

37. Fo, Le commedie, Vol. 12, p. 114.

38. Ibid., p. 106.

39. Ibid., p. 153.

40. Stille, Alexander, Excellent Cadavers (London: Vintage, 1996), p. 65Google Scholar. The newness of the phenomenon can also be gleaned perhaps by the unusual spelling of the word ‘marijuana’ used in the 1976 edition: cf. note 36.

41. Fo, Le commedie, Vol. 12, p. 125.

42. See Mitchell, Dario Fo: People's Court Jester, p. 384–5.

43. Cited in Meldolesi, Su un comico in rivolta, p. 206.