SOURCE: "The Roar of the Clown," in The Drama Review, Vol. 30, No. 1, Spring, 1986, pp. 171-80.

[In the following essay, Jenkins analyzes Fo's "fusion of subversive politics and poetic slapstick."]

The intellectual complexity and bacchanalian passions of Dario Fo's epic comedy are usually reduced in translation to the flatness of a political cartoon. Even successful productions like Rennie Davis' version of We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay! leave the audience with the impression of Fo as a clever satirist whose work can be comfortably categorized as political theater. This limited view ignores the subtler dimensions of Fo's talents. In their original versions Fo's plays are dense with poetic wordplay, visual references to medieval paintings, and sophisticated rhythmic structures that are lost by translators and directors who focus single-mindedly on Fo as a political clown.

Of course, there is a fundamentally political dimension to all of Fo's work, which includes...