Dario Fo, Nobel-winning playwright, dies aged 90

The Nobel prize-winning playwright and actor Dario Fo has died aged 90, the Italian government has said.

Fo, famous his cutting political satire in plays such as Accidental Death of an Anarchist, won the Nobel prize for literature in 1997. The Corriere della Sera newspaper reported that the Italian had been suffering lung problems for months and had been in hospital for 12 days.

Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, sent his condolences on Thursday morning. "In Dario Fo, Italy has lost one of the great protagonists of the theatre, of culture, of the civic life of our country," said Renzi.

“His satire, research, his work on set design and his versatile artistic activities are the legacy of one of the world’s great Italians.”

Fo and his wife, muse and leading lady, Franca Rame, captured the hearts and minds of ordinary Italians, writing and performing for stage, radio and television and regularly skewering political leaders with deft dialogue.

Cult status

His subversive humour won him a cult status, but also saw him periodically hounded off stage and television in an attempt by the Italian establishment to muzzle him.

He stirred controversy with his 1969 work Mistero Buffo, a retelling of the Christian gospels in an improvised format. Controversy over his work led to him being banned by Italian state broadcaster Rai for 14 years and refused a visa to the US.

His death provoked an outpouring of grief. Commentators from the media, literary, and political world said Italy has lost a man who created, in the words of television presenter Pippo Baudo, “a new way of doing theatre, a new language”.

It was a loss that was felt particularly hard among the leaders of the Five Star Movement, the populist and anti-establishment party that Fo was committed to, having compared its anarchic, foul-mouthed founder Beppe Grillo to one of the heroes of his own chaotic comedies.

Shortly after the news of Fo’s death, Grillo posted a short statement about his friend and admirer on his blog. He recalled a speech Fo gave to a crowd in Milan’s Piazza Duomo in 2013, in which he urged the party’s followers: “Go do it yourselves!”

Opponents

After news of his death emerged, Renato Brunetta, a politician in the Forza Italia party and former minister under Berlusconi, said he could not be hypocritical and admitted he never liked the writer. “With me he used racist terms in reference to my height. God rest his soul,” Brunetta tweeted.

Matteo Salvini, the leader of the rightwing and xenophobic Northern League, said Fo clearly believed that Salvini and his followers were racist, egotistical and ignorant.

“It’s all right, it’s water under the bridge. I’m not resentful,” he said, before offering up “double prayers”.

Another writer and political activist, Erri de Luca, said Fo was the happiest winner of the Nobel prize for literature that ever lived. “Instead of a tear we must smile.” – (AFP/Reuters/Guardian Service)