Mistero buffo (“Comical Mystery Play”) is the famous Dario Fo’s solo pièce performed across Europe, Canada and Latin America from 1969 to 1999. It is recognised as one of the most controversial and popular spectacles in postwar European theatre and its broadcast in Italy prompted the Vatican to denounce it as “the most blasphemous show in the history of television”. Mistero buffo is a series of brief monologues with Biblical themes, drawn from the Biblical apocrypha and popular tales of the life of Christ. The performance texts are in a mixture of Italian, dialect and grammelot. Grammelot is a style of language used in satirical theatre, a gibberish with macaronic and onomatopoeic elements, used in association with mime and mimicry – its origin dates back to the 16th century commedia dell’arte, but Fo’s grammelots is constructed from Gallo-Italian languages and phonemes from modern languages. Fo’s work originates in the surviving texts and descriptions of the giullari, itinerant players of medieval times, who would travel to towns and villages, bringing the latest news. The show that you will see puts together three famous monologues: The birth of Jongleur, The first miracle of infant Jesus and The butterfly Mouse.

by Dario Fo
The 50 years edition
with Matthias Martelli
direction Eugenio Allegri
assistant director Alessia Donadio
light design, sound, video  Loris Spanu
thanks to Serena Guidelli
Teatro Stabile di Torino – Teatro Nazionale
in collaboration with ArtQuarium