LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 17:11 November 2017
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
         Dr. S. Chelliah, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Dynamics of History, Power and Dissent:
A Study of Theatrical Tradition of Dario Fo

Monika Dhillon, UGC NET, M.Phil.


Dario Fo (1926-2016)
Courtesy:
https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1997/fo-bio.html

Abstract

Italian playwright Dario Fo, who got the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997, views theatre as a dialectical space in constant conflict with the historical space and believes that theatrical space should engage in constant dialogue with a critical audience leading to continuous rewriting and sharpening of political message. Fo invents the dissident potential and carnivalesque aspects of Italian Commedia dell’ arte for specific political purposes and redefines the image of the guillare, the popular, unofficial mouth piece of the peasant population, who is essentially pre-commedia. The present paper aims to demonstrate how Dario Fo employs the tradition of amateur theatre groups and Commedia dell’arte to restore the dignity of the downtrodden masses with his own interpretation of history. He believes that there is a need to reinterpret history from the prism of writers and performers who are more frequently regarded as purveyors of mere entertainment, strolling players, clowns, local story tellers, variety performers, farceurs and scriptwriters for various popular carnivals and fêtes. He shows distrust in the quasi-divine image of a historian and alleges that historian is also a performer who cooks several historical details and serve them to the readers as facts. He redefines the concept of tradition in his theatre by applying the historicity of past facts to the present leading to a cultural revolution.

Keywords: Dario Fo, Tradition, Cultural Revolution, Popular Tradition, History, Carnivalesque, Theatrical Space, Power.

Introduction

Theatre is a living, dynamic art whose completed form is the performance, an ephemeral product that changes with each audience. No performance lasts beyond its duration (Lorch 17).

The Italian playwright Dario Fo, who got the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997, is rooted in the tradition of amateur theatre groups and the popular Commedia dell arte. He was the most significant figure in the history of political theatre since Vsevolod Meyerhold, Erwin Piscator and Bertolt Brecht. He views theatre as an enterprise to critically reinterpret and revise historical narratives. He emphasizes the performance oriented nature of most texts and employs the dissident potential of commedia dell’ arte to unfold the multiple layers of past. Fo believes that theatre can reconfigure history by questioning the authenticity of past narratives, and dismantle hegemonic assumptions of “religion centric” historical discourse. The purpose of the present paper is to analyze Fo’s theatre as a dialectical space which is in constant conflict with the historical space and believes that theatrical space should engage in constant dialogue with a critical audience leading to continuous rewriting and a sharpening of political message. He shows distrust in the quasi-divine image of a historian and alleges that historian is also a performer who cooks several historical details and serve them to the readers as facts. Image of a historian or a writer is tainted with political consideration and, therefore, in a Fo’s performance, historical narrative is treated as a multidimensional trope where writing and performing occur at a given moment in time, in a specific political situation. But his greatest influence comes from the local storytellers he refers to as fabulatori (Scuderi 27).

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Monika Dhillon, UGC NET, M.Phil.
Research Scholar
Panjab University
Chandigarh
India
monikadhillon29@gmail.com

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