Vatican denies blocking Fo’s show
(ANSA) – Vatican City, November 1 – The Vatican on Friday denied blocking a show by Nobel prize-winning playwright Dario Fo in honour of his late wife Franca Rame in a theatre close to St Peter’s.
“We knew nothing about it,” Vatican Spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told ANSA.
He accused the Italian media of exploiting the case “to bring the Vatican and the pope into it in an incorrect and even instrumental way”.
“It’s better the show does not go on at the Auditorium,” Lombardi said.
Fo claimed Thursday the Vatican was trying to stop the show featuring a playlet written by long-time stage partner Rame.
The show, highlighting Rame’s disillusionment with politics after a 19-month spell in the Senate for an anti-Berlusconi party from early 2006 to late 2007, was to have opened shortly at the Auditorium Conciliazione, a theatre on the avenue leading up to St Peter’s.
Fo, 87, who won his Nobel in 1997 to the public dismay of conservative politicians, accused the Vatican of censorship.
He said it spoiled “all the joy Pope Francis is giving us”.
Leftist activists Fo and Rame, who died aged 83 in May, collaborated on many satirical works savaging Italian politics, the Catholic Church and the downtrodden status of women.
Fo penned most of the works but Rame contributed a lot – and her play on her 1973 rape by five rightist thugs was a big hit.