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Coppia d'arte: Dario Fo e Franca Rame. Con dipinti, testimonianze e dichiarazioni inedite by Concetta D'Angeli, Simone Soriani

2008; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 103; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/mlr.2008.0069

2222-4319

Jennifer Lorch,

Educational and Social Studies

564 Reviews essays collected inL'uomo come fine (I963) asmeaningful as Gli indifferenti(p. 417)? Can Moravia's proclamation of his linkswith Sartre and Camus be accepted without reservation (pp. IOO and 249)? Is bourgeois alienation an appropriate category to understand Italian society in Moravia's time (pp. 203 and 4 I8)? If the intellectual has a negative influence on the storyteller, especially from the late I930S onwards, how does this influence affect Moravia's Bildungsromane in general, and books such as La disubbidienza inparticular? Could the double nature of thatnovel-so effectively shown byMascaretti (p. 289)-be caused by a conflict between the storyteller and the coldly ratiocinating intellectual? Isn't the late La vita interiore (I978) seriously damaged by the theseswith which Moravia burdens it? At 534 pages, thisbook is too short.One wants to hear more from itsauthor. UNIVERSITY OF EXETER LUcIANO PARISI Coppia d'arte: Dario Fo e Franca Rame. Con dipinti, testimonianze e dichiarazioni inedite. Ed. by CONCETTA D'ANGELI and SIMONE SORIANI. (Atti e sipari, i) Pisa: Plus-Pisa University Press. 2006. 2I4 pp. ?15. ISBN 978-88-8492-338-7. The editors introduce theirvolume by claiming thatDario Fo and Franca Rame have not had their due from theworld of criticism. At the beginning of their careers, the emphasis of theatre criticism was logocentric and the couple were seen primarily as stage performers; later, in a backlash against logocentric criticism, Fo was criticized because he was an author. This collection of essays addresses this issue, by locating Fo and Rame within thepopular and comic traditions of the early twentieth century. The book, however, isnot merely a homage to extraordinary artists; it also aims to filla critical gap by including an aspect of theirwork, namely the visual, which un til recently has received little attention. It opens with a hitherto unpublished piece by Dario Fo, written in I965, entitled by the editors 'II gesto e laparola' (pp. 9-I0), which contains a revealing paragraph on the function of theaudience in thecreation of a theatrical performance, and closes with a useful chronology of their lives and work. This is a rich and varied collection. There are informative essays, such as those by Silvia Varale and Concetta D'Angeli detailing Franca Rame's career (pp. I I-17 and I9-44); analytical pieces, such as theclear and well-argued presentation fromLuciana d'Arcangeli of the development of the female character inDario Fo's work (pp. 45 55), and the fascinating excursion intozoomorphic symbolism inFo's giullarate from Antonio Scuderi (pp. 13 I-44). Tom Behan focuses attention on a play that has re ceived less critical assessment thanmany others, probably, he suggests, because it is entirely serious and did not include Fo in its cast. Behan examines L'operaio conosce 300 parole ilpadrone iooo per questo lui e ilpadrone (I969) in the context of Fo's splitwith the Italian Communist Party in 1970 (pp. I45-58). Two excellent contri butions focus on Fo the actor.Anna Barsotti provides a fineanalysis of Fo's acting style in her contribution 'Dario Fo, l'attore plurale' (pp. 8I-I02), detailing, with il lustrations, a series of facialmovements to convey comedy and tragedy,describing Fo's approach as 'un'accentuazione di difetti fisionomici valorizzata dalla fissita im prevista, sorprendente, e dall'inclinazione della faccia' (p. 87). Simone Soriani, in a masterly contribution onMistero buffo (pp. 103-30), sets Fo's approach in the con textof early twentieth-century Italian variety theatre and compares and contrasts his acting style to contemporary actor-narrators such asMarco Paolini, Marco Baliani, Ascanio Celestini, Davide Enia, and Andrea Cosentino. An important featureof this collection of essays is the emphasis on Dario Fo as vi sual creator.Christopher Cairns traces thedevelopment from monologue toanimated cartoon inhis contribution onyohan Padan e la descoverta de le Americhe (pp. I59-79) MLR,I03.2, 2oo8 565 and judiciously assesses thegains and losses in the transition.Bruno Ferraro presents illustrations from themid-ig8os and early I99os, concentrating on Fo as painter in his analysis of the pictures relating to theDecameron and La mandragola (pp. i87 20I). In a particularly enlightening chapter Silvia Varale assesses the importance of the figurative arts forDario...