SOURCE: "The Throw-Away Theatre of Dario Fo," in The Drama Review, Vol. 19, No. 2, June 1975, pp. 102-13.

In the following essay, Cowan traces Fo's career and delineates the essential characteristics of his works.

In Western Europe, where Brecht's plays have by now become standard fare for bourgeois audiences and where political theatre remains, by and large, the domain of students and middle-class intellectuals, the work of Dario Fo stands out as an anomaly. He is a gifted poet and playwright, as well as an actor, director, and full-time cultural activist; but, although his plays are known throughout Italy and numerous other European countries, they are usually discarded after a few months' performance. His company does not consider itself avant-garde, and eschews formal experimentation for its own sake, yet it has incorporated many innovative techniques both in the dramatic structure of its productions and in its mode of organization. Although...