Franca Rame (18 July 1929 – 29 May 2013) was an Italian theatre actress, playwright and political activist. She was married to

Nobel laureate The Nobel Prizes (, ) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make outstanding contributions in th ...

playwright

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. ...

and is the mother of writer Jacopo Fo. Fo dedicated his Nobel Prize to her.

Biography

Franca Rame was born in

Parabiago Parabiago (Milanese: ; ) is a town located in the north-western part of the Metropolitan City of Milan, Lombardy, northern Italy. The town is crossed by the road to Sempione (S.S.33) and MilanGallarate Railway; nearby flow the Olona river and t ...

Lombardy The Lombardy Region (; ) is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in northern Italy and has a population of about 10 million people, constituting more than one-sixth of Italy's population. Lombardy is ...

, Italy, in 1929, into a family with a long theatre tradition. She made her theatrical debut in 1951. Shortly thereafter, she met Dario Fo, whom she married in 1954. Their son, Jacopo was born on 31 March 1955. In 1958, she co-founded the Dario Fo–Franca Rame Theatre Company in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

, with Fo as the director and writer, and Rame the leading actress and administrator. Rame continued working with Fo through many plays and several theatre companies, popular success and government censorship. She was active in Soccorso Rosso (Red Aid), writing letters and providing books for prisoners and assisting their families and lawyers. In the 1970s, Rame began writing plays (often stage

monologue In theatre, a monologue (also known as monolog in North American English) (in , from μόνος ''mónos'', "alone, solitary" and λόγος ''lógos'', "speech") is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts ...

s) of her own, such as ''Grasso è bello!'' and ''Tutta casa, letto e chiesa'', which displayed a markedly

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

bent. In March 1973, fascists who were reportedly commissioned by high-ranking officials in Milan's

Carabinieri The Carabinieri (, also , ; formally ''Arma dei Carabinieri'', "Arm of Carabineers"; previously ''Corpo dei Carabinieri Reali'', "Royal Carabineers Corps") are the national gendarmerie of Italy who primarily carry out domestic and foreign poli ...

(Italian gendarmerie) abducted Rame, held her at gunpoint and dumped her in a van. They raped her, beat her, burnt her with cigarettes, slashed her with razor blades and left her in a park. She returned to the stage after two months with new anti-fascist monologues. Rame became a member of the

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in 1967. She was a member of the

Italian Senate The Senate of the Republic (), or simply the Senate ( ), is the upper house of the bicameral Italian Parliament, the lower house being the Chamber of Deputies. The two houses together form a perfect bicameral system, meaning they perform iden ...

representing the centre-left anti-corruption

Italy of Values Italy of Values (, IdV) is a populist and anti-corruption political party in Italy. The party was founded in 1998 by former ''Mani pulite'' prosecutor Antonio Di Pietro, who entered politics in 1996 and finally left the party in 2014. IdV has ai ...

(IdV) party. In 2006, she was designated candidate for

President of Italy The president of Italy, officially titled President of the Italian Republic (), is the head of state of Italy. In that role, the president represents national unity and guarantees that Politics of Italy, Italian politics comply with the Consti ...

by IdV's leader,

Antonio Di Pietro Antonio Di Pietro (; born 2 October 1950) is an Italian politician, lawyer and magistrate. He was a minister in government of Romano Prodi, a Senator, and a Member of the European Parliament. He was a prosecutor in the ''Mani pulite'' corruption ...

, but she obtained only 24 votes on the first ballot of the

presidential election A presidential election is the election of any head of state whose official title is President. Elections by country Albania The president of Albania is elected by the Assembly of Albania who are elected by the Albanian public. Chile The p ...

. From 2010 she was, also with her husband, an independent member of the

Communist Refoundation Party The Communist Refoundation Party (, PRC) is a Communism, communist List of political parties in Italy, political party in Italy that emerged from a split of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in 1991. The party's secretary is Maurizio Acerbo, who r ...

. She died in Milan in 2013, at the age of 83, and is buried at the city's Monumental Cemetery.

Partial filmography

* '' Ha fatto tredici'' (1951) * ''

Poppy A poppy is a flowering plant in the subfamily Papaveroideae of the family Papaveraceae. Poppies are herbaceous plants, often grown for their colourful flowers. One species of poppy, '' Papaver somniferum'', is the source of the narcotic drug ...

'' (1952) * '' Lo svitato'' (1956) * '' Rascel-Fifì'' (1957)

References

*D'Angeli, Concetta & Soriani, Simone (eds). ''Coppia d'arte. Dario Fo e Franca Rame'', Pisa, Plus, 2006 *Soriani, Simone. ''Franca Rame, l'altra metà del cielo''. "Fermenti", n. 254, 2022, pp. 86-96; ID, ''Parliamo di... Franca Rame, autrice'', "Sinestesieonli

, XIV, 45, 2025, pp. 1-18 *d'Arcangeli, Luciana and Pagliaro, Annamaria (eds). “Dario Fo & Franca Rame. Beyond the Rules”, ''Spunti e Ricerche,''Volume 31, 2016, published in 2017. *d'Arcangeli, Luciana. "Franca Rame’s Dowry: How the Rame Family Tradition Lives on in the Theatre of Dario Fo and Franca Rame" in Donatella Fischer (ed.) ''The Tradition of the Actor-Author in Italian Theatre.'' Oxford. Legenda, Italian Perspectives, 27, 2013, pp. 136–145. *Rame, Franca and Farrell, Joseph. "Non è tempo di nostalgia" – interview with Franca Rame, Della Porta Editori, 2013. * d'Arcangeli, Luciana. "The Rape by Franca Rame: Political Violence and Political Theatre" in Pierpaolo Antonello and Alan O'Leary (eds) ''Imagining Terrorism: The Rhetoric and Representation of Political Violence in Italy, 1969–2009''. Oxford, Legenda, 2009, pp. 101–115. * d'Arcangeli, Luciana. "Dario Fo, Franca Rame and the Censors" in Guido Bonsaver and Robert Gordon (eds) ''Culture, Censorship and the State in 20th Century Italy''. Oxford, Legenda, 2005, pp. 158–167. * d'Arcangeli, Luciana. ''Madness in the Theatre of Dario Fo and Franca Rame''. Forum Italicum, Stony Brook (NY), Spring, 2005, pp. 138–165. * d'Arcangeli, Luciana. 'Franca Rame: Pedestal, Megaphone or Female Jester?' in Ed Emery (ed) ''Research Papers on the Theatre of Dario Fo and Franca Rame''. Cambridge, 28–30 April 2000". London and Sydney, Red Notes, 2002, pp. 49–59. * Farrell, Joseph. ''Dario Fo and Franca Rame: harlequins of the revolution''. Methuen, 2001. * Jenkins, Ronald Scott. ''Dario Fo & Franca Rame: artful laughter''. Aperture, 2001. * * Valeri, Walter (ed). ''Franca Rame. A Woman on Stage''. West Lafayette, Bordighera Press – Purdue University, Indiana 2000.

External links

Official website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rame, France 1929 births 2013 deaths Candidates for President of Italy People from Parabiago Italian Communist Party politicians Communist Refoundation Party politicians Italy of Values politicians Senators of Legislature XV of Italy Italian actresses Italian socialist feminists Italian women dramatists and playwrights Italian dramatists and playwrights Theatre people from Milan Kidnapped Italian people

Biography

Partial filmography

References

Further reading

External links