This research was possible thanks to the generous financial support of the Ragusa Foundation and to the encouragement and help of Mattea Fo and the Compagnia Fo Rame. I would also like to thank the staff at Joyce Theater, New York, the Emerson College Library, Boston, and the MusALab archive.

This article examines the role of Italian actress and playwright Franca Rame (1929-2013) in her artistic partnership with Dario Fo, particularly in the success of their international performances and translations. In recent years, there have been various critical efforts in this direction, with publications such as Angelucci and Kolsky’s (2022) provocative “Franca Rame won the Nobel Prize”, and the organisation of the first conference solely centred on Rame (2023, Universities of Verona and Milan). Previous scholarship focused on how companies around the world translated and staged Rame and Fo’s work (Bruno de Mello & Palma, 2023; Dumont-Lewi, 2017; Holm, 2021; Lorch, 2000; Lozano Miralles et al., 2016; Taviano, 2005). Instead, I argue that one of the keys of Rame and Fo’s international success is that they toured in person countries like France, Denmark, Sweden, Argentina, the UK, and the US, performing directly in front of international audiences. The article discusses Rame and translation from three perspectives. Firstly, I argue that Rame was the agent of translation for the couple, highlighting her key role in obtaining international recognition for their work. While this goes beyond the main centre of interest of the article, it should be noted that gender is key to gain a nuanced understanding of their dynamics: by analysing interviews and biographical materials on Rame and Fo, I show Rame’s key role in pursuing international success—which mostly prized Fo. Secondly, the article discusses the strategies adopted by Rame in translating their works, particularly her early adoption of theatre surtitles, a rare innovation at the time (Brodie, 2020; Ladouceur, 2015; Péran, 2010). Thirdly, I provide some textual examples of Rame’s translation choices, based on her Italian versions of pseudo-dialect pieces. By examining Rame’s agency in the international success of the Compagnia Fo-Rame, this article highlights the importance of considering the role of less studied translation strategies, such as theatre surtitles and onstage translation, in the dissemination and success of theatre across borders.

Methodology

As highlighted by Morini (2022), scholarship on theatre translation has so far mostly focused on its text-based aspect: my analysis points instead to the performative aspect, and the translation process is analysed also in the context of the product itself. I follow recent appeals to develop a “performance-sensitive” approach to translation analysis and to combine it with archival research in theatre translation, which has so far been an unexplored methodology (Marinetti & De Francisci, 2022, p. 247). Building on Marinetti (2013, p. 29), I look at the linguistic, dramaturgical, and performative aspects of theatre translation under a unified lens, striving to avoid a distinction into discrete phases but rather focusing on their compresence and mutual influence on stage. This, of course, is possible thanks to the specificity of Rame’s production: in the foreign performances of her show Tutta casa, letto e chiesa (All Bed, Board, and Church), translation happens on the stage and becomes an active and constituent part of the show. My article thus also contributes to the field of translator studies (Chesterman, 2009; Kaindl et al., 2021; Pym, 2009), which as I show can be expanded to include theatre practices as well, while at the same time the analysis of theatre translation in performance can bring to translation studies a renewed understanding of “live” collaborative practices.

I adopt the methodological perspective of Feminist Translation Studies (Castro & Ergun 2017; Castro & Spoturno, 2020). So far, the reception of American feminism in Italy has received more scholarly attention (Bracke, 2014; Rebora, 2023), but there is growing interest on the translation of Italian feminism in English (Federici, 2021). Taking into consideration Rame’s key role in the Italian feminist and communist movements and the distinct political role of her works (Contu, 2017; Cheek O’Donnell, 2004; Cottino James, 1995; Wood, 2000), I argue that embedded in Rame’s translation activity, is also a desire to bring Italian feminism onto the international stage, as most evident in the workshops and press conferences she often gave when travelling abroad (such as those at Riverside Studios, London). This article develops at the intersection of recent debates across gender and translation in both Translation Studies and Italian Studies. In her article on feminist translation and female literature in contemporary German-speaking countries, Wolf (2006) highlighted how “women, despite constituting a numerical majority in the [translation] field, still lag behind men in terms of recognition and all other of Bourdieu’s forms of consecration, as well as (and closely related with recognition) economically profitable positions in the field” (p. 137). Moreover, as highlighted by Moi (1991) and Schwartz (2019, p. 1036), femaleness is deliberately connected with lower symbolic capital. Schwartz (2019) also showed how this holds true in the specific context of Italian literature in translation. As I will discuss, we can see clear examples of these general tendencies impacting Rame’s career.

Archival sources

The practical difficulties of working on women translators are often exemplified by the lack of archival materials: if translators’ archives are rare (Cordingley & Hersant, 2021), those of women translators are even more so. Rame is the notable exception: her and Fo’s reception constitutes a unicum for contemporary Italian theatre abroad, and we have extensive sources to analyse it because of her determination to self-archive everything. To develop my analysis, I used sources from two archives. Firstly, in order to analyse Fo and Rame’s international performances, I located two previously unstudied tape recordings, preserved at the Library of Emerson College, Boston.1 These are recordings of Rame and on-stage actress/translator Maria Consagra in It’s All Bed, Board and Church (Joyce Theater, New York, 1986). This was the only full recording I could locate and identify of a Rame performance in an anglophone setting, and in which it was also possible to see the different modes of translation at play. Additionally, I analysed the materials from the Archivio Rame Fo, accessible both online and at its physical location at Museo Archivio Laboratorio (MusALab) Dario Fo-Franca Rame at the Archivio di Stato (Verona). This archive was Rame’s great project: initially stored at her and Fo’s private home, her collection kept growing, and included many different items, from correspondence, to scripts and drafts, flyers, programmes, props, and costumes. MusALab also preserves VHS, but they are not currently accessible to researchers. Innovatively, Rame decided quite early on (in the mid 1990s) that the archive should be digitised and made freely accessible online, where it can be found today, at <www.archivio.francarame.it>. Fo later acknowledged the key role of this archive for his international canonisation: talking about the Nobel Prize for Literature, he said “if she hadn’t bothered to record, rewrite, order, get published everything we wrote, discussed, rehearsed, staged, I would never have gotten this award” (“se non si fosse preoccupata lei di registrare, riscrivere, ordinare, far pubblicare tutto ciò che abbiamo scritto, discusso, provato, messo in scena, questo premio non l’avrei mai ottenuto” ) (quoted by Numerico, 1997/2018).2

Rame, Fo, and collaboration

In 1997, in his Nobel acceptance speech, Fo highlighted the importance of his partnership and constant collaboration with Rame: “to conclude, let me share this medal with Franca. Franca Rame, my companion in life and in art who you, members of the Academy, acknowledge in your motivation of the prize as actress and author; who has had a hand in many of the texts of our theatre […]. Believe me, this prize belongs to both of us” (Fo, 1997). Even if Fo acknowledged Rame’s role in the speech, Rame did not receive the same kind of official recognition, which is, to this day, still missing. Scholars such as Farrell (2014), Contu (2017), Dumont-Lewi (2017) argued for the authorial role of Rame in the works of the couple, to distance Rame from the image of the editor-assistant of Fo and to give her full recognition as a writer and creator. As Angelucci and Kolsky (2022) argue, Rame is not an ancillary figure, helping Fo with what comes before and after the creation of his works: rather, their authorship should be framed as collaborative, as they argue that, in the specific case of the couple, the plays have effectively been written “four-handedly” (a quattro mani). It is however complex to establish the extent, patterns, and structure of this collaboration, also considering that Rame and Fo have released contradictory statements on the matter (Farrell, 2014, p. 400). This ties in with the more general point that, when it comes to theatre, as stressed by Contu (2017), authorship cannot only signify writing down the script, but has to include what happens on stage (p. 188).3 In the case of Rame and Fo, therefore, it is not only important to know who wrote down the scripts of their plays, but also to consider the share of their input during rehearsals and tours.

In the case of Rame, we can clearly see how gender and translation activity are linked: on the one hand, in line with common tropes on translation and gender (Chamberlain, 1987), she was the one in charge of dealing with the translation of her and Fo’s works, while he did not take care of the process, despite heavily benefitting from it.

Con la traduzione Dario non mi ha aiutato in nulla. Tutto quello che mi dice è: “Pensaci tu”. Ogni volta che c’è un problema nella scrittura di un testo da pubblicare: “Fai tu”. “Fai tu, fai tu... va a finire che lo firmo io!”, gli dico sempre ridendo. Sulla mia tomba voglio che sia scritto: “qui giace Pensaci tu”. (Rame & Farrell, 2013, p. 93)

When it comes to translation, Dario has not helped me with anything. All he tells me is: “Take care of it”. Whenever there is a problem in writing a text for publication: “You do it”. “You do it, you do it... I’ll end up signing it!”, I always tell him laughing. On my grave I want it to be written: “Here lies Take Care Of It”. (my translation)

This sarcastic statement, from Farrell’s interview with Rame, highlights the division of roles in the couple, and the tension between their creative and writing process and standard ways of framing authorship. In this anecdote, Fo is portrayed as playing the role of the solitary genius, who has the initial idea of the show, develops, and performs it, but is not interested in the reputedly lesser tasks of transcribing tapes, editing, translating the pseudo-dialect section, and archiving. He does, however, still sign the texts, which would then be published under his name. Rame, instead, particularly at the beginning of their partnership, would do this editorial and translatorial work without seeing her name acknowledged in print.

Rame’s contributions: performance and translation

Nonetheless, by 1986, Rame had acquired fame as an independent actress, and her shows were, according to Anderlini (1985), “among the most popular pieces of feminist theater in Europe” (p. 32). The debut of Tutta casa, letto e chiesa (All Bed, Board and Church) in 1977 represented the beginning of a period of increased visibility for Rame, in which, even when she was not writing the plays on her own, she was performing them alone on stage, for the first time in her career. This is the work that finally confirmed Rame’s potential, proving that she could independently and successfully lead a show. According to Farrell (2001), in terms of the creative process, “most probably, there was no real change during this ‘feminist’ period, when the plays began to be jointly credited” (p. 205), but this take is not universally accepted by scholars (Gawler & Kolsky, 2004). What is agreed upon is the contribution that Rame made during the performance. When performing, Rame would improvise, changing the script and including the successful additions as revisions in following versions, and, even if she often downplayed it, she was aware of the importance of her contribution: “I’m an author, since I invent and embellish on the spot” (Anderlini, 1991, p. 30).

Rame was not only an author, but she was also the translation agent, and translator, of the works of the couple. She rendered into Italian most of Fo’s pseudo-dialect sketches and plays.4 In those cases, the Italian translation is not only a tool for the Italian reader to understand the sections of the pseudo-dialect text that could be obscure, but it is also a necessary, intermediate step for international translations. Assuming that foreign translators might not be so familiar with the dialect, Rame prepared an Italian version with notes so that future translations could be based on that (as in the 2000, 2003 and 2018 editions of Mistero buffo). Rame was therefore a translation practitioner, and one used to working not only with translation on stage but also with textual and literary translation, as we will see at the end of this article.

The tapes of the New York performance of All Bed, Board and Church were done for the Theater on Film & Tape Project of the New York Public Library, but Rame and Fo also frequently adopted this strategy. In particular, archiving and recording performances was useful to Rame to supervise the translation process of her and Fo’s plays. According to Farrell, Rame went as far as requesting back-translations into Italian in order to verify the translations of their works (Farrell, 1998, pp. 19–20; Farrell 2001, p. 206). Rame’s editorial work and control over which version of the text she wanted to be translated each time, suggests that she had an understanding of there being an original of their work (that being often the last performed version, see Pizza, 2019, p. 126). This helps us to frame the role Rame assigned to tapes in archiving and preserving her and Fo’s work: rather than being mere tools to track the development of a show and to check and improve its details, tapes became key to accessing the everchanging original. Tapes gave Rame power and control over the text: any potential translator could not simply rely on a printed version, but had to be in direct contact with Rame to get access to the last authoritative tape approved by the couple.

Rame and Fo’s international appeal

Rame and Fo’s plays were performed abroad from the 1960s onwards, predominantly in Scandinavia and in several European countries, including France, Spain, and Germany. Their relationship with the English-speaking world is quite unique as, despite not knowing English and being translated into it relatively late, in the late 1970s, “the popularity of their [Rame and Fo’s] work […] is unusual in that it sets unprecedented records of success” (Taviano, 2005, p. 33). In the UK, Rame and Fo’s plays were performed in West End theatres as well as at the National Theatre, and in the US they reached Broadway. However, Rame and Fo were not particularly satisfied with these adaptations, as they felt that the political nature of their theatre had been failed by these stagings, which did not quite strike the right balance between an overtly comical or political adaptation (Taviano, 2005, p. 105). What is unusual and remarkable is that Rame and Fo then decided to self-promote their works: they went in person on tour to different countries, performing there, in Italian, with surtitles and on-stage translators.

In 1982 Rame performed at Riverside Studios, London, and she then came back with Fo in 1983; the prologues to the sketches were translated on stage by Stuart Hood (Mitchell, 1984/2014, p. 272; Taviano, 2005, p. 51). Riverside, at the time, often included European theatre in its programme, and was to develop a successful collaboration with Rame and Fo. These performances were particularly significant in the history of Rame and Fo’s staging in the UK as British audience members were given for the first time the opportunity to see these shows performed by their creators. The shows were widely successful, so much so that Rame and Fo returned the following year, both to perform and to run workshops. A result of this fruitful collaboration between Riverside Studios and the Compagnia Fo Rame is a booklet by Red Notes, containing the transcription of their workshops and some translations of their works (Fo & Rame, 1983; Mitchell, 1984/2014, pp. 274–79). A similar opportunity to see Rame and Fo’s performances in person was given to the North American public in 1986, when the couple toured the US. This was an even more significant event as the pair had been denied access to the US in 1980 and 1983, and in 1984 they were only granted a very limited visa, because of Rame’s involvement with the association Soccorso Rosso Militante. Founded in 1972, Soccorso Rosso supported left-wing political prisoners, including some who had been implicated in terrorist acts, and for this reason was viewed with suspicion by US authorities. Rame and Fo said that their intention was to go to the US both to learn more about American theatre, but especially to show their acting style to the Americans, as they had noticed that the different acting tradition was one of the main difficulties anglophone actors had to face when staging their works (Taviano, 2005, p. 88).

Rame and on-stage translation

When discussing the translation strategies of 1986 performances of It’s All Bed, Board and Church at the Joyce Theater, New York, we should highlight that the show is structured in a sequence of two moments: in the prologues, Rame is on stage with Maria Consagra (who at the time was teaching at New York University) and introduces the sketches, improvising. In this case, Rame speaks Italian and Consagra translates into English. During the monologues, the interpreter leaves, and Rame performs (in Italian or pseudo-dialect), while surtitles in English are projected on the wall. 

The solution of on-stage interpreting was not developed specifically for the tours in the UK and the USA, as it had been tried out before, as on the French tour of 1974, when Fo performed in Paris (Dumont-Lewi, 2016; Fo, 2003, p. 344). This is possible with works such as Mistero buffo (Comic Mystery Play) and Tutta casa, letto e chiesa (All Bed, Board and Church), as their one-(wo)man-show structure easily allows for a translator on stage. What happens on stage might seem like a variant of consecutive interpreting: the actor-interpreter-translator is not simply expected to translate what Rame is saying as soon as she is finished, but is also expected to maintain a certain rhythm and intonation to preserve the theatrical effect of the lines—an aspect that, as will be discussed below, Rame deeply cared about.

This use of the interpreter as on-stage performer is innovative, as it does not perfectly fit the usual categories of theatre translation: Carlson (2006) distinguishes between “simultaneous interpreting”, where the audience wears headphones and can hear an interpreter, and “on-stage translation”, for which however he only presents examples in which a character is also playing the role of the translator, while in our case Consagra does not fit into the category of “characters serving as translators” (pp. 181–83), because she is not playing a part in a traditional, conventional sense. Similarly, Griesel (2005) lists as the main options for theatre translation “summarising translation”, “surtitles”, and “simultaneous interpretation”, plus a general “alternatives”, under which we would have to catalogue Rame and Fo’s solution for the prologues (p. 2–3). In their case, we can therefore say that we find a mix between ‘on-stage’ translation and consecutive interpreting (Pöchhacker, 2011).

At the beginning of the recorded New York performance, Rame mentions that Tutta casa, letto e chiesa debuted in Italy in 1977 and kept expanding and changing in the following years. The programme of the Joyce Theater tells the audience that, while the full-length version of the show included twelve different monologues, “For this tour, Miss Rame and Mr Fo selected the most striking and contemporary of the monologues in order to provide American audiences with an insight into both their artistic work and the idiosyncrasies of contemporary Italian society”.5

All the monologues of the show are delivered in Italian (apart from Medea, in pseudo-dialect). As Rame herself aptly summarised, “when I act on stage, I, as the Italians would say, ‘speak as I eat’” (“quando recito in scena, parlo come mangio”) (Rame & Farrell, 2013, p. 106). This is also part of Rame’s political approach, as she often criticised when intellectuals and feminists of the Left wrote and spoke in words that were not comprehensible to a larger audience (Lorenzetti, 2018). Rame took issue with the Italian and international feminist movement, and did not see herself as active part of it (Leigh Streifer, 2016, pp. 210–24). At the same time, however, she did not mind her works being recognised as feminist abroad, since, as she stated, “it’s true that I’m a feminist in that I defend women’s interests. I carry on a discourse about ‘women’s liberation’” (Anderlini, 1991, p. 46). In the context of her monologues, this position also means that Rame nuances the difference between herself in the prologues and the characters in the monologues. According to Wood (2000), Rame can do this as she is speaking to the audience on the basis of her own authority and notoriety, easily breaking the fourth wall, and this strategy is “enabling her to slide between her own voice and that of her characters, between reality, fiction, and metafiction” (p. 164). All the monologues deal with women’s condition and are told through the perspective of an ordinary woman (with the exception of Medea). Rame does not bring activists to the stage, but her characters are mothers, workers, and housewives, and she combines a critique of social structures with more ironic points on women’s sexual lives and right to pleasure. Rame’s feminism is centred on issues of sex, motherhood, and women’s role in the couple. Her Marxist perspective is clear, as she focuses in particular on unpaid marital labour (Contu, 2016, p. 69), pointing out the role of men in women’s oppression as well as its systemic nature (Anderlini, 1985).

In the tape of the 1986 tour6, Rame starts her performance explaining that the show was born to support women’s struggles, also financially. The monologues of the evening are Il risveglio (The Awakening), Una donna sola (A Woman Alone), Lo stupro (A Rape), Abbiamo tutte la stessa storia (We all have the same story), and Medea, selected to offer as vast as possible a representation of what were the main points of the women’s liberation movement in Italy in the 1970s: unpaid marital labour, violence against women (from harassment to rape), loneliness, difficulty to divorce, lack of economic independence, abortion rights, and inequalities in romantic relationships (also addressing the pleasure gap). Rame’s initial prologue in this case has the function of reminding the audience that the monologues do not just have a contemporary setting but are pertinent to the audience’s context, as she is probably aware that there is a risk of othering and distancing (as shown by the description in the programme quoted above). Rame highlights the relevance of what she’s saying for an American audience—to prevent them from thinking that her show is about the condition of Italian women, rather than of women in general. What the audience does not know, is that in the monologues Rame is not only bringing, under farcical pretences, some of the key experiences of the Italian feminist movement of the decade prior, but also some of her personal experiences, such as that of being spied on by the police (as her character jokes in A Woman Alone), of having an abortion (in We All Have the Same Story), and of being a victim of State rape in 1973 (in A Rape).

During the show, Rame addresses the topic of the reception of her works, indirectly stressing how differently her monologues have been received in comparison to the unilateral praise for Fo’s performance of Mistero buffo during the same tour. At the same time, she seems to be very aware of the difficulties Consagra must be facing while translating for her onstage, and of Consagra’s needs as a performer and as a person. At times, Rame directs Consagra in her translation, both verbally and physically: she tells her when it is the right moment to proceed with the translation or shows her that she should wait or start to translate with gestures, a soft touch, or looks. Rame does occasionally show a certain tension, and difficulty with this different performance format: for instance, revealing a certain impatience and frustration when the rhythm of the translation means that she has to slow down or when she perceives that some words have not been rendered by Consagra. Consagra does not try to replicate Rame’s acting in English, but rather to act almost as surtitle of the play: Rame’s lines are translated in a quasi-neutral tone, as Consagra aims to be fast and precise in order to preserve the rhythm of the show. Rame shows that she is in control, gentle and patient: she does apologise to Consagra for cutting her off while she is still translating, and for adding elements to the show that had not been discussed beforehand. Rame also stays physically close to Consagra, holding her close with one arm in some sections of the prologue, or touching Consagra’s shoulder if the audience laughs when she has not translated yet, as if to reassure her and tell her to wait. More importantly, she acknowledges the bodily dimension of acting and translating, of standing on stage, and uses the first-person plural to express it: in the prologue to We All Have the Same Story, she invites Consagra to sit by her side and to continue the translation there. Rame and Consagra show complicity on stage: even when Consagra makes mistakes or comes up with translation solutions that do not fully convince Rame, Rame demonstrates an openness to the creative potential of on-stage translation, which is confirmed by some of her statements on the topic. When interviewed about her tours abroad, and asked by a journalist, “but do you not lose something in translation?” (“ma non si perde con la traduzione?”), she replied, convinced: “On the contrary. Translation becomes a show within the show” (“Al contrario. La traduzione diventa uno spettacolo nello spettacolo”) (Farkas, 1886/2018).

Adopting the strategy of on-stage translation allows Rame to be directly on stage when presenting her own works. Moreover, while surtitles allow her to perform her sketches in person, on-stage translation allows her to establish a relationship with foreign audiences, as the presence of the translator beside her allows her to preserve the improvised, more locally targeted parts of the show. On-stage translation is thus a fundamental tool in Rame’s quest for immediacy and directedness also when abroad.

Rame and surtitles

Recent years have seen a growing number of articles on the use of surtitles in performance: while most focus on opera, there is a growing (albeit still limited) body of contributions on surtitles in theatre translation. To this day, Louise Ladouceur has been the most significant researcher on theatrical surtitles; she focused on the Canadian bilingual theatre scene, as Canada was one of the first countries to adopt opera surtitles, in 1983 (Ladouceur, 2013; 2014; 2015). Among other early adopters, we can find operas and theatres in Beijing, New York, and Copenhagen (Griesel, 2009, p. 120; Low, 2002, p. 97; Yuan & Qian, p. 2021). Since then, surtitles have quickly spread across the globe, and today they are common at international theatre festivals, while new publications discuss their potential in terms of accessibility and creativity (Misiou & Kostopoulou, 2023).7

Rame seems to have been an independent innovator in the field: it was Rame’s idea to use surtitles, and she was inspired by the kind of transparencies used in university lectures (Varale, 2006, p. 17).8 In an interview with Farrell (Rame & Farrell, 2013), Rame called it “the overhead projector screening the translation simultaneously” (“la lavagna luminosa che proiettava la traduzione in simultaneal”), adding that it was her idea to bring it to the theatre (p. 106). As reported by the press, Rame and Fo were already using surtitles in the early 1980s. The Italian news agency ANSA mentioned the use of surtitles when commenting on Rame’s performances in Denmark in 1982 and on the planned USA tour of 1983, in this case defining their use as “a cinematically impressive simultaneous translation system, by now tested multiple times” (“di grande effetto cinematografico e ormai collaudato varie volte”) (ANSA, 1983/2018). According to Dumont-Lewi (2016), the adoption of surtitles goes back to the Paris tour of 1974, when “during the performances at the Théâtre de Chaillot, the actor-author performed the prologues in French, if necessary with the help of an interpreter, while the sketches were performed in the original language, with French surtitles” (durante le recite al Théâtre de Chaillot, l’attore-autore eseguiva i prologhi in francese, se occorreva con l’aiuto di un interprete, mentre i pezzi venivano recitati nella lingua originale, con sopratitoli in francese) (p. 92). As we can see, by the 1980s the double translation strategy of interpreting and surtitles was already tried-and-tested, and Rame was one step ahead with this technique.

As shown by the materials at the Archivio Rame-Fo, it was Rame who wrote the surtitles, by hand (also Varale, 2006, p. 17). Graphically, she would adopt strategies such as capital letters, different font styles and sizes, and underlining. The surtitles are written on a “rullo”, a long reel of paper (of several metres), which would be unrolled little by little in front of the projector. The text on the scroll is spaced out to form different sections, creating a similarity to the lines of a script, and accompanying the rhythm of its delivery. Currently, the Rame-Fo archive preserves rolls in English and Brazilian Portuguese. Only two English reels feature the name of the translators who worked on the text: the older version of The Resurrection of Lazarus reports “translated by Stuart Hood and Diana Hosker” and the older surtitles of Boniface VIII report “translated by Jytte Lollesgaard”. Since Hood was Fo’s interpreter in the UK, the fact that we can find his name in the working draft of the surtitles suggests that the copy we read had been initially made for a British performance. This is highly possible as we know that Rame had surtitles for her performance in London (Mitchell, 1984/2014, p. 272), for which Hood was interpreting (Rame & Farrell, 2013, p. 106). Similarly, Hosker worked for Michael Imison Playwrights and Jan Van Loewen Ltd, who at the time were Rame and Fo’s agency in the UK. Moreover, Lollesgaard signed the translation of ‘I don’t move, I don’t scream, my voice is gone (The Rape)’ for the Red Notes publication of Rame and Fo’s Riverside workshops. This link with the British workshops is further confirmed if we compare some of the unattributed surtitles to the other translations featured in the Red Notes booklet. In particular, the surtitles for “Waking up” are almost exactly the same as the version in the Red Notes publication based on Rame and Fo’s London workshops. That edition says that the translation of the text is “a working translation, adapted from performance from Margaret Kunzle’s translation/Olwen Wymark’s adaptation as published by Pluto Press”.9 A comparison between the reel of The Rape and the translation featured in the Red Notes booklet shows significant similarities, so much so that I suggest that Jytte Lollesgaard’s translation is the one behind the version used for the reel.

Among these archival materials, we can find Rame’s annotations for the Italian version of the surtitles of Medea, prepared for her performance at the Riverside Studios in 1990. Firstly, we note how the translation of pseudo-dialect sketches is made from an Italian language version: already a translation in itself. Moreover, we can see how the surtitles are made not just as a text, but with the performance in mind: spacing, font sizes, and division of sentences is meant to create the right rhythm so that they can blend in with the performance and be shown just at the right moment. These annotations also prove that translation is carefully considered as part of the rhythm of the performance: in Rame’s notes on this show, the lines of the on-stage interpreter are taken into account, so that the surtitles will not overlap or anticipate any parts of the show.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to discuss the interaction of surtitles and acting during the New York performance, since the surtitles have been cut from the recording. However, the surtitles do appear in some sections of the tape preserved in Boston: to mark the transition from one monologue to another, the person recording decided to move the camera upwards in order to briefly frame in shot the surtitles on stage, thus showing the title of the section to follow. This proves that the surtitles had been used for this show, even if we cannot see them for most of the recording.

It should be noted that comparison of the surtitles preserved with the published translations by Jenkins (Fo, 2006) and Emery (Fo, 1988), who are credited as translators in the Emerson recording, shows that they diverge significantly, thus suggesting they are based on different source texts. Finally, a textual-only analysis of the surtitles would make little sense, since, as highlighted by Ladouceur (2013), “on-stage translation devices are strictly performative” (p. 357). While it is important to acknowledge their presence and role in the performance, and the revolutionary technical innovation they constituted, a more detailed analysis of their function in the performances of Rame and Fo will hopefully be possible when more recordings of Rame and Fo’s performances become available to researchers. Surtitles are not only key devices to assert the couple’s authoriality and allow them to perform their texts abroad, showing their style and their interpretation, but they also fit perfectly into Rame and Fo’s Brechtian vision of theatre, as “running supertitles provide a constant reminder to the audience of the constructedness of the event they are watching” (Carlson, 2006, p. 200). Clearly, this was a successful innovation. Rame commented positively on it, saying that, thanks to the surtitles, “even abroad I could get the laughs I would get in Florence on a Sunday afternoon (the Florentine public is the one that laughs the most in the world)” (“anche all’estero riuscivo a prendere le risate che avrei preso a Firenze la domenica pomeriggio (il pubblico fiorentino è quello che ride di più al mondo)”) (Rame & Farrell, 2013, p. 106). We can thus see how, to Rame, surtitles also function as an international test of the quality of her and Fo’s work: through them the pair can check if their lines work, even when the audience does not understand Italian.

Finally, Rame’s adoption of surtitles has a double significance for the diffusion of the works of the couple: surtitles constituting a way to open and close new avenues of translation at the same time. On the one hand, surtitles do open the possibility of new performances abroad, allowing Rame and Fo to tour in person in countries where they do not speak the local language. On the other hand, however, surtitles expand Rame and Fo’s control over the text and the performance, as the couple can use them to perform abroad in person rather than leaving them to local companies.

Rame the translator

Overall, Rame is a conservative translator. When performing, she is kind and empathetic with her interpreter, but she nonetheless notices and remarks upon the variations she considers to be mistakes. Rame’s conservative approach, and her desire to tightly control her ‘originals’, is even more evident in her published translations. While a full-scale analysis of Rame’s translation practice (narrowly defined) goes beyond the scope of the article, I will here provide a handful of examples to exemplify her tendencies when translating on the page, in order to illustrate how they align with her conservative preferences already showcased on stage.

As mentioned, in the print editions of Rame and Fo’s work, it was Rame who translated the pseudo-dialect monologues into Italian. Notably, in the latest edition of Mistero buffo, next to her translation she added notes in square brackets, intended for a specific readership: “to foreign language translators for a clearer understanding of the text” (ai traduttori in lingua straniera per una più chiara comprensione del testo) (Fo, 2018, p. 44). The reason why these notes are useful examples to discuss is that they represent Rame’s overall tendency to literalness. In particular, they show how Rame, in her Italian versions, tries to stay close to the pseudo-dialect as much as possible, which to her constitutes the ‘original’.10 In some instances, this means that Rame adopts the same word as the pseudo-dialect version in the Italian translation too, and paraphrases (hence re-translates it) in square brackets, as in the following example: “at sèt stàit impròpi un tarlòch”, translated as “sei stato proprio un tarlocco [coglione]” (p. 60). Here, the sentence “you’ve been a real dickhead” features, in the Italian translation, the word tarlocco, which is lexically the closest to the dialect tarlòch (dickhead). Rame, worried that not all foreign language translators might recognise it, offers also a second, more idiomatic translation: coglione. As we can see, she opts for this double translation in other instances: “da quèl inamoros”, translated as “da quell’innamoroso [uomo pieno di amore]” (by that man full of love) (p. 86), where the dialect inamoros is translated first as innamoroso (the closest option) and then as uomo pieno di amore (a paraphrasis). And also: “ma spàcan la crapa anche i àrbari”, translated as “ma spaccano la crapa [testa] anche gli alberi” (but they break the head even of trees) (p. 94); “Na volta che l’è bén netàd”, translated as “Una volta che è ben nettato [pulito]” (Once he is well cleaned) (p. 156); “poderrébbe pure facce a mén de sbeceràre de continuo cóntra li prèveti”, translated as “a parte che potrebbe fare pure a meno di sbecerare [sparlar di continuo] contro i preti” (He could also refrain from constantly badmouthing priests) (p. 190); “’stu silénsi che gran frecàss ol mena”, translated as “’sto silenzio che gran fracasso mena [porta]” (this silence that causes such a commotion) (p. 215); “adès me t’l’hàit sgionfàde a sùfficit i cojómbari”, translated as “adesso me li avete gonfiati abbastanza i coiombari [coglioni]!” (Now you’ve really pissed me off (literally: inflated my balls)) (p. 218); “dòna che in d’ol far l’amór no’ l’è mai straca!”, translated as “donna che a far l’amore mai si stracca [stanca]!” (woman who never tires of making love) (p. 240). In these cases, we can see that specific pseudo-dialect words are first rendered in an Italianised form (tarlocco, innamoroso, crapa, sbecerare, mena, coiombari), and this is Rame’s favourite option as it stays closer to the version of the sketches performed on stage by her and Fo. However, she also provides an alternative translation in standard Italian, in square brackets, for future foreign language translators—the assumption being that they might struggle to understand this kind of vocabulary. These examples show us that Rame is a translation practitioner to the core: she is a translator for translators, as, even when translating her own works from pseudo-dialect into Italian, she already has in mind future possible versions of the work in other languages. In this case, the fact that she shares authorship of the text helps to explain her attention to detail: when offering alternative solutions in the Italian translation, she is thinking about how to guide future translators to preserve her, and Fo’s, text.

Rame’s square brackets also serve other purposes. At times, they serve as a dictionary: for instance, in this example: “la stria [forma gergale di morte improvvisa]” (stria [informal term for sudden death]) (p. 236), she does not translate stria, but keeps it in the Italian version, using a parenthesis to explain its specific meaning in dialect. Rame also strives, whenever possible, to preserve the same metaphors as the pseudo-dialect text: see for instance “immattìt de festa”, which she translates as “ammattiti di festa [impazziti dalla gioia]” ([“driven mad by joy”]) (p. 330). Moreover, Rame’s involvement with the text is proved by the fact that she seems quite concerned that translators might not understand even fairly common Italian words, as exemplified by some notes that could seem unnecessary: “strenzéghe bén saràda ‘sta corèza”, translated as “stringete ben serrata [chiusa] questa cinghia” (tighten this strap well closed) (p. 256); “vün de la sua tàja”, translated as “uno della sua taglia [misura]” (one of his size) (p. 260); “chisto è ’n’errore!”, translated as “questo è un errore [hai sbagliato]!” (this is a mistake [you’re wrong]) (p. 374). Here, fairly common Italian terms such as serrata (closed), taglia (size), and the sentence “questo è un errore” (this is a mistake), are nonetheless paraphrased.

Finally, in other instances, her literalness gives rise to some fairly unusual solutions: “sarò gran contento” is kept in the Italian version as “sarò gran contento [avrò grande felicità]” (I’ll be very happy [I’ll have great happiness]) (p. 298), where both the first translation and the bracketed alternative are far from idiomatic. Overall, Rame’s resulting translation of Mistero buffo remains rooted in northern Italian lexicon and syntax.11

Rame’s use of notes shows us that the Italian version serves a dual purpose: if her translation had only been intended as a tool to help other translators of Mistero buffo, in the main text she could have used directly the standard forms included in square brackets. The fact that, instead of doing that, she adopted more localised and unusual forms suggests that the Italian translation is also understood as a literary text that must represent, at least in part, the variation in register and richness of vocabulary of the pseudo-dialect script. In light of this, future research will be able to discuss Rame’s Mistero buffo translation and annotations in the wider context of the genetic materials preserved by the Compagnia Fo-Rame, and in particular her edits and translation notes on the works of foreign translators requesting her approval.

Conclusions

This article focused on the so far unexamined role of Franca Rame as translator and, in particular, as translation agent. Her role included providing an Italian version for her and Fo’s sketches in pseudo-dialect, as well as preserving all drafts and materials now forming the Rame-Fo archive. I argued that Rame’s specific translation strategy was key to the couple’s international success. Rame and Fo achieved their worldwide recognition not only because of the quality, political relevance, and innovative energy of their works, but also because of Rame’s first-hand involvement in their international reception. Rame understood that translation was a key part of their potential for success and was able to best take advantage of the specificities of theatrical translation. Rame’s strategies, and especially her choice to adopt onstage translation and surtitles, preserved their authorial image and control over their body of work: rather than being mere names on a flyer, Rame and Fo were present in the flesh, reminding audiences around the world that there was ‘an original’ way of performing and staging their work. Rame’s belief in the concept of the original is particularly evident in her translations of Mistero buffo. In these cases, her Italian translation strives to preserve dialectal elements. Her decision to stay close to the pseudo-dialect version leads her to add notes in square brackets whenever she thinks that foreign translators might not understand the words adopted in the Italian version, as this—despite being meant as a more accessible translation—often deviates from standard Italian.

Thanks to these examples, this article demonstrated that Rame paid special attention to the difficulties, challenges, and specificity of translation a theatrical (and performative) context. She was able to design innovative solutions to best combine a desire to perform in person across the globe with the language barrier. Rame’s introduction of surtitles in international tours shows an early understanding of the future direction of an increasingly permeable global theatre scene. Finally, introducing another actor to interpret on stage reveals another, more playful, approach to translation.

As this article has shown, Rame does not have just one, fixed understanding of translation, applicable to her entire oeuvre. She was able, as few were, to adapt and re-interpret the tool of translation to suit and maximise the reach of the work of La Comune and the Compagnia Fo Rame. Of course, the internationalisation of Rame’s work cannot be limited to authorial concerns of control over her output. In this case, translations and tours abroad are also part of a wider political struggle: Rame’s monologues were received successfully as a proof of women’s international struggle and, in touring and giving workshops on how to perform them, Rame was not only giving lessons of epic theatre but also showing what feminism in Italy and its theatre were. Rame joked that her notoriety would be posthumous, and we could wonder if part of her involvement in archiving also came from the awareness that this would be a way to preserve her legacy, which otherwise could have fallen through the cracks like that of many women before her. As Rame herself had predicted, there would be a renewed interest on her partnership with Fo: “our collaboration begins in the rough drafts and continues to the scenes and to the end. When I’m dead, they’ll say, ‘She was the one who…’” (Anderlini, 1991, p. 33).