Dario Fo

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Discuss the use of farce in the play Accidental death of an Anarchist. Accidental death of an Anarchist, originally titled Morte Accidentale di un Anarchico , is an Italian play by the Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo. Dario Fo, the Nobel prize winner in 1997, is something of a phenomenon: the brilliant, absurdist, ultra-leftist, anti-fascist Italian playwright, known (along with his wife, Franca Rame, who was kidnapped and raped by Neofascist thugs associated with the carabinieri, police, in 1973) for farce, absurdist comedy, and for wild slapstick one-man improvisational shows.  The play was first published in 1970, in Italy, is a social satire and a political drama. It uncovers the crime or criminals, police, corruption, imposters, death and dying, journalism and journalists, and anarchism or anarchists. Fo’s Accidental death of an Anarchist responds to events unfolding in Italy in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Generally, it looks at police corruption and suspicions regarding the government’s conspiracy in this corruption. It addresses the actual death of an anarchist who was being held in the police custody. In its first two years of production, Dario Fo's controversial farce, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, was seen by over half a million people. It has since been performed all over the world and is widely recognized as a classic of modern drama. A sharp and hilarious satire on political corruption, it concerns the case of an anarchist railway worker who, in 1969, 'fell' to his death from a police headquarters window. In the play Death of an Anarchist, Dario Fo expresses his political concerns, using high humor. He incorporates stock characters such the Madman and the superintendent to address issues like abuse of power, while using farce and satire to emphasize his point. All these points force us to think about the issues in contemporary society. The Madman has the main role in Death of an Anarchist. We can compare him to the Commedia Dell’arte character...
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