SOURCE: "From Italian Roots to American Relevance: The Remarkable Theatre of Dario Fo," in Modern Drama, Vol. XXXII, No. 4, December 1989, pp. 532-44.

In the essay below, D'Aponte assesses the impact Fo has had on American theater.

Clowns are grotesque blasphemers against all our pieties. That's why we need them. They're our alter egos.

(Dario Fo, Cambridge, May 1987)¹

Americans writing about theatre have been pronouncing Dario Fo's work extraordinary, whether for performance or political reasons, or for both. "For the past decade," claimed Joel Schechter in 1985, "Dario Fo has been Europe's most popular political satirist."² "So many theatres have included Fo in their recent seasons," wrote Ron Jenkins in 1986, "that he has become the most-produced contemporary Italian playwright in the U.S."³ American producers interested in social satire seem to have become less leery of this zany Italian genius who publicly thanked his "fellow actor," Ronald Reagan, for the...