''Mistero buffo'' ("Comical

Mystery Play Mystery plays and miracle plays (they are distinguished as two different forms although the terms are often used interchangeably) are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the represen ...

") is

Dario Fo Dario Luigi Angelo Fo (; 24 March 1926 – 13 October 2016) was an Italian playwright, actor, theatre director, stage designer, songwriter, political campaigner for the Italian left wing and the recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature. I ...

's solo ''pièce célèbre'', performed across

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

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 The biblical apocrypha (from the grc, ἀπόκρυφος, translit=apókruphos, lit=hidden) denotes the collection of apocryphal ancient books thought to have been written some time between 200 BC and AD 400. The Roman Catholic, Eastern Ort ...

and popular tales of the life of Christ. The performance texts are in a mixture of Italian,

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...

and

grammelot Grammelot (or gromalot or galimatias) is an imitation of language used in satirical theatre, an ''ad hoc'' gibberish that uses prosody along with macaronic and onomatopoeic elements to convey emotional and other meaning, and used in association w ...

– a constructed or rather extemporised language that draws on, and mixes up,

regional languages * A regional language is a language spoken in a region of a sovereign state, whether it be a small area, a federated state or province or some wider area. Internationally, for the purposes of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Lan ...

. 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 title of the piece is borrowed from ''

Mystery-Bouffe ''Mystery-Bouffe'' (russian: Мистерия-Буфф; Misteriya-Buff) is a socialist dramatic play written by Vladimir Mayakovsky in 1918/1921. Mayakovsky stated in a preface to the 1921 edition that "in the future, all persons performing, pres ...

'' by

Vladimir Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (, ; rus, Влади́мир Влади́мирович Маяко́вский, , vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ məjɪˈkofskʲɪj, Ru-Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky.ogg, links=y; – 14 Apr ...

. An authorised English translation has been carried out by Ed Emery.Dario Fo, ''Mistero Buffo'', trans. Ed Emery, Methuen Books, London, 1988. Online version at http://www.geocities.ws/dariofoarchive/mistero.html

References

Citations Bibliography * {{Dario Fo 1969 plays Christian plays One-act plays Plays by Dario Fo