SOURCE: "Dario Fo's giullarate: Dialogic Parables in the Service of the Oppressed," in Italica, Vol. 65, No. 2, Summer, 1988, pp. 131-43.

[In the following essay, Piccolo focuses on the binary theatrical technique, giullarata, which alternates between a narrative voice and quotes from various characters, and examines the connection between dialogue structure and the type of knowledge it yields.]

The production of knowledge useful to the oppressed has been one of Dario Fo's foremost concerns throughout his career. While the grotesque has been his all-encompassing paradigm and demystification his main aim, in his post-1968 production Fo uses two distinct dramatic structures to convey different types of knowledge. Elements of the farce and of the giullarata are present and mixed in all of his works, but Fo predominantly uses the former structure when he wishes to provide counter-information about specific political events. The latter structure is more useful in conveying a general...