Funny mystery

by Dario Fo and Franca Rame,
a project by Elisa Pistis,
a Teatro Insonne production
with the patronage of the Fo/Rame Foundation

A single body on stage to give voice, today, to an ancient urgency: to tell the story of power, injustice, and rebellion through "Mistero Buffo" by Dario Fo and Franca Rame, in the version by Elisa Pistis.

Elisa Pistis's "Mistero Buffo" is obviously not intended to be a copy of Dario Fo's work, but it unfolds primarily from a very simple starting point: a woman who stages, alone, Mistero Buffo. The reworking therefore begins with a feminine sensibility, which does not exclude the Maestro's work but, by necessity, has a completely different expressive direction.

Furthermore, the times we live in are different, as are the social contexts of our present: this Mistero Buffo begins with the need to share a timely reflection on some dynamics that still characterize our society today. Above all, it explores how the issues of power, arrogance, and social injustice, far from resolved and belonging to the past, can still resonate today through material written in the late 1960s and through stories that have been at the heart of our culture, and beyond, for centuries.

The underlying theme is the Holy Family, and two different moments in Jesus' life are brought to the fore: the baby Jesus and the adult Jesus, accompanied, of course, by the undoubtedly important presence of his mother, Mary of Nazareth: characters familiar to us, recognizable to us, regardless of our relationship with religion. The show uses different languages: starting with the dialects of Northern Italy (primarily Lombard, Venetian, and Friulian), but with a free reworking that leaves room for expressiveness and, above all, for the emotional message, it finally reaches Sardinian, a completely different language that breathes new life into the giullarata, a language with atavistic, primitive sounds that lend themselves perfectly to telling ancient stories like these.

The first miracle of the Baby Jesus sees the Holy Family forced to emigrate to Jaffa and adapt and settle into a new city.
While Joseph and Mary look for work to support the family, the baby Jesus tries to befriend the city's children, proving himself friendly and affable until someone angers him... Mary under the Cross is the story of Mary of Nazareth who ascends to Golgotha ​​to Jesus, crucified: a mother who watches her son die, unjustly tortured and killed for preaching a message of peace and brotherhood. In this commoner Mary, far from traditional iconography, the primal instinct to save her son from death prevails; but there is no way to oppose the destiny of Jesus, who came to Earth to sacrifice himself.