Dario Fo, the Commune, and the Battle for the Palazzina Liberty

Abstract

In 1974 Dario Fo and ‘The Commune’ theatre collective were forced to engaged in a political battle to secure control of the ‘Palazzina Liberty’, a nondescript building once a market canteen, set in the middle of a park in a south-eastern suburb of Milan. Here, Tom Behan describes how mass support, derived from a revolutionary ideology, secured The Commune's control over the building for several years. The relationship between this political movement and the political content of the shows performed at the Palazzina is then discussed with reference to Can't Pay? Won't Pay!, Fanfani Kidnapped, and Mum's Marijuana is the Best. Tom Behan, is Senior Lecturer in Italian at the University of Kent at Canterbury. His article began life as part of the research for his Dario Fo: Revolutionary Theatre (Pluto Press, 2000), and forms a companion piece to ‘The Megaphone of the Movement: Dario Fo and the Working Class, 1968–79’, published in The Journal of European Studies, XXX (September 2000).