In the rain, arm in arm with Dario Fo in Corso di Porta Romana, sheltered by a large umbrella, heading towards his house. It was 1994. I was 27 years old and this memory is one of the most vivid memories, even now, that I am almost sixty years old and that I have met many famous people in my long career as a journalist. But at the time qThat meeting, that unexpected familiarity had a special flavor both for the greatness of the character and for his humility and spontaneity. Then that playwright, comedian, writer, painter, actor, director, and comedian a few years later, in 1997, would be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Making that encounter even more unique.
But let’s start from the beginning: I was 23 years old when, after graduating, I came to Milan to do the journalism school of the Catholic University. NoIn the radio laboratory I was noticed by the manager, a Rai programmer, to host a program for the Rai region. It went well and I moved on to a national program on Rai Radio 2, Intercity. On two occasions I happened to go and interview Dario Fo with all the equipment that was used at the time to make recordings outside a radio studio. He was always outside a theater, he was friendly, smiling, helpful, generous, but the dynamic was the canonical one, I was the interviewer, he was the interviewee. Then the collaboration with dai ended, I worked for various newspapers and as part of a report on women I chose to collect the voice of Franca Rame. I was then invited to see one of his shows at the Teatro di Porta Romana. And I found myself sitting in the audience with Dario Fo next to me: her husband and the journalist applauding Franca on stage. Once the performance was over, with the greatest naturalness in the world, Dario Fo told me: «Come to our house, since we live nearby». It had started to rain. He pulled out a huge umbrella that looked more like a beach umbrella. He took me by the arm, and I, in disbelief, said to myself: “But I’m arm in arm with Dario Fo and I’m going to his house.” Jacopo, their son, was also at his house. who welcomed me by offering me spaghetti with midnight mussels. Dario Fo wanted to show me the room where he painted: he had also been an illustrator and had been for years he dedicated himself more and more to painting: powerful, colourful, vivid paintings, with the figures that emerged from the canvas with his own energy.
And I was there as if I were a member of the family, welcomed with the same naturalness reserved for a niece. I would have stayed with them for a long time, but I had to go, I lived on the other side of the city, I had the car parked nearby. And I felt a bit like Cinderella forced to break the spell to return to her grayer everyday life. But that simplicity in opening the doors of one’s home to a person who was there like many others had met in life, but who was making them feel unique and special as they were a piece of history of theatre, television and much more, I have always carried it in my heart.
When a few years later the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Dario Fo, I remember that I rejoiced at the news as if they had given it to an elderly uncle of mine, with the same pride as one of the family, just as they had made me feel at home that time. The last time I saw Dario Fo was nin 2011. At the San Babila theater he and Franca Rame reported on stage Francis, jester of God, directed by Felice Cappa. I couldn’t miss it: for them, for that saint of the poor of whom they gave their own version, and because it could be one of their last shows together. Two years later, on May 29, 2013, Franca Rame died. On 13 October 2016 Dario Fo also left us.
I will never forget that evening in the rain. And with it a gesture that, beyond the greatness of the writer and the artist, it made me see first-hand the greatness of man.
And it was also raining on the day of his funeral in a Piazza Duomo packed with personalities from politics and entertainment, but also with many ordinary people who had sincerely loved him.
