"Because, following the tradition of medieval jesters, it mocks power by restoring dignity to the oppressed."
Motivation for the Nobel Prize in Literature 1997
"In all of Italy, Fo is known as an actor, but little as an 'author.' Yet around the world, his texts are known and performed." Umberto Eco
Mistero Buffo is the most famous of Dario Fo's works and also the one that has sparked the most controversy... (wiki)
Irony, sarcasm, the jest of La strage degli innocenti, Moralità del cieco e dello storpio, Bonifacio VIII, or the drama of Maria alla Croce... are the hallmarks of Mistero Buffo, a text and a perfect theatrical mechanism that, with the pleasure of desecrating everything... tells the silent, millennia-old story of the subordinate classes in a political and social satire that retains its corrosive impact over time. (einaudi.it)
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