Fo fo' mayor

To have seen Dario Fo perform is to have glimpsed the pantomime of controlled anarchy which is true Commèdia. source.

Fo and the politics of Berlusconi's Italy recently intersected in Milan. Fo ran in the mayoral primary. (Maybe as if Pryor had run for congress under Nixon. Kombinat! are you amused?)


Fo's broadside, Io non sono un moderato, demonstrates that the urge to shred the pinstripe of liberal milquetoast is not peculiar to costume designers toiling in the US political wardrobe.

Massimo Moruzzi in Milan recently saw Fo and wife Franca Rame in performance, and in an email offers this about the electoral outcome:

Mistero Buffo last Saturday was great as usual, and Dario Fo (and Franca) in great shape. It was not enough, however, to help him win the "primary elections" set up by the center-left coalition (aka the only "votable" one, the other "coalition" being Berlusconi's servants*...) here in Milan to decide upon a candidate for the elections for a new Mayor later this year.

Everything had already been "decided", to be sure. All the parties of the coalition except the hard-line commies and part of the environmentalists had decided to back Ferrante, a man who was the "prefetto" - the envoy of the central government in Milano, that is - until only a few months ago (yes, the prefetto is a figure created by Mussolini and never abandoned...)

Massimo has posted some photos here.

(*changed at author's request)