Johan Padan and the Discovery of the Americas

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Johan Padan and the Discovery of the Americas
Written by Dario Fo
Original language Italian

Johan Padan and the Discovery of the Americas is a one-man play by Dario Fo, recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature. It is narrated by Johan Padan, a fugitive from the Spanish Inquisition who accompanies Christopher Columbus on his fourth voyage to the New World.

Dario Fo Italian actor, playwright, comedian, singer-songwriter, theater director, painter, and political activist

Dario Fo was an Italian actor, playwright, comedian, singer, theatre director, stage designer, songwriter, painter, political campaigner for the Italian left wing and the recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature. In his time he was "arguably the most widely performed contemporary playwright in world theatre". Much of his dramatic work depends on improvisation and comprises the recovery of "illegitimate" forms of theatre, such as those performed by giullari and, more famously, the ancient Italian style of commedia dell'arte.

Nobel Prize in Literature One of the five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Alfred Nobel

The Nobel Prize in Literature is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction". Though individual works are sometimes cited as being particularly noteworthy, the award is based on an author's body of work as a whole. The Swedish Academy decides who, if anyone, will receive the prize. The academy announces the name of the laureate in early October. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895. On some occasions the award has been postponed to the following year, most recently in 2018.

Spanish Inquisition The most substantive of the three different manifestations of the wider Catholic Inquisition along with the Roman Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition

The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition, was established in 1478 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms and to replace the Medieval Inquisition, which was under Papal control. It became the most substantive of the three different manifestations of the wider Catholic Inquisition along with the Roman Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition. The "Spanish Inquisition" may be defined broadly, operating in Spain and in all Spanish colonies and territories, which included the Canary Islands, the Spanish Netherlands, the Kingdom of Naples, and all Spanish possessions in North, Central, and South America. According to modern estimates, around 150,000 were prosecuted for various offenses during the three-century duration of the Spanish Inquisition, out of which between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed.

Contents

Fo's response to the 1992 quincentennial celebrations of the first voyage of Christopher Columbus to the Americas, the title character is a Venetian fugitive who escapes from the Spanish Inquisition by joining the explorer and coloniser's fourth voyage. Forced to tend the animals on board, a storm casts him adrift in the ocean on the back of a pig until he reaches the coast and is rescued by the indigenous peoples of the Americas. [1] A video recording of Fo's performance exists. [2]

Indigenous peoples of the Americas Pre-Columbian inhabitants of North, Central and South America and their descendants

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian peoples of North, Central and South America and their descendants.

Cast

Rosario Fiorello Italian showman

Rosario Tindaro Fiorello, known just as Fiorello, is an Italian comedian, singer, radio, and television presenter.

Plot summary

Prologue

Fo tells the story of being invited to Seville in 1991 to discuss his earlier play, Isabella, Three Tall Ships, and a Con Man , recounting the hostile reception it received in Rome in 1963, and how under the regime of Francisco Franco a Spanish theatre troupe was arrested for attempting to stage that play. Sensing that his Seville audience was hostile as well, Fo improvised a story that would eventually serve as the basis of Johan Padan and the Discovery of the Americas.

Seville Municipality in Andalusia, Spain

Seville is a Spanish city, the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir River, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula. Seville has a municipal population of about 690,000 as of 2016, and a metropolitan population of about 1.5 million, making it the largest city in Andalusia, the fourth-largest city in Spain and the 30th most populous municipality in the European Union. Its old town, with an area of 4 square kilometres (2 sq mi), contains three UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the Alcázar palace complex, the Cathedral and the General Archive of the Indies. The Seville harbour, located about 80 kilometres from the Atlantic Ocean, is the only river port in Spain. Seville experiences high temperatures in the Summer, with daily maximums routinely above 35 °C (95 °F) in July and August.

Francisco Franco Spanish general and dictator

Francisco Franco Bahamonde was a Spanish general and politician who ruled over Spain as head of state and dictator under the title Caudillo from 1939, after the Nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War, until his death in 1975. This period in Spanish history is commonly known as Francoist Spain or the Francoist dictatorship.

Part one

Johan Padan flees Venice after his lover is arrested by the Inquisition and accused of witchcraft. After several episodes in which he witnesses violent antisemitism in the form of auto da fe and financial fraud committed against Jews who flee such violence, Johan is conscripted as part of Christopher Columbus's crew, where tends the livestock in the ship's hold.

Venice city in northeastern Italy

Venice is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is situated on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The islands are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave rivers. In 2018, 260,897 people resided in the Comune di Venezia, of whom around 55,000 live in the historical city of Venice. Together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), which is considered a statistical metropolitan area, with a total population of 2.6 million.

Inquisition group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy

The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy. The Inquisition started in 12th-century France to combat religious dissent, in particular the Cathars and the Waldensians. Other groups investigated later included the Spiritual Franciscans, the Hussites and the Beguines. Beginning in the 1250s, inquisitors were generally chosen from members of the Dominican Order, replacing the earlier practice of using local clergy as judges. The term Medieval Inquisition covers these courts up to mid-15th century.

Witchcraft Practice of magical skills and abilities

Witchcraft is the practice of magical skills and abilities. Witchcraft is a broad term that varies culturally and societally, and thus can be difficult to define with precision; therefore cross-cultural assumptions about the meaning or significance of the term should be applied with caution.

Upon arriving in the Americas Johan is entranced by the natives and subsequently horrified by the violence committed against them by his fellow Europeans. When the ship he is on is wrecked, he and his fellow animal keepers, survive by floating ashore on the backs of pigs and after many misunderstandings, joins a Caribbean tribe, using his skills of basic surgery, fireworks, and horse training to become the holy man of the tribe.

Americas Landmass comprising North America, Central America and South America

The Americas comprise the totality of the continents of North and South America. Together, they make up most of the land in Earth's western hemisphere and comprise the New World.

Caribbean Region to the center-east of America composed of many islands / coastal regions surrounding the Caribbean Sea

The Caribbean is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands and the surrounding coasts. The region is southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and the North American mainland, east of Central America, and north of South America.

Part two

Johan leads the tribe on a journey around the Americas, having comical encounters with other Native American cultures. He teaches his tribe how to tame and ride horses. Finally, in Florida when they come upon a Spanish colony, Johan realizes that the only way to protect his tribe from being enslaved is to convert them to Christianity. He teaches them heretical versions of stories from the Bible and Gospels. When that fails, he uses sabotage, and his expertise with fireworks to drive the Spaniards away.

Composition

Fo researched the journals of a number of European explorers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and wrote the play in a dialect that drew upon the Lombardian, Venetian, Catalanian, Castilian, Provençal, Portuguese and Arabic. His wife, the actor Franca Rame, translated it into modern Italian. Fo also composed a book of illustrations that he uses to prompt himself when he performs the play on stage.

Performance

When performed by Dario Fo, the play is often improvised, using a book of illustrations as a prompt. He uses mime and grammelot and onomatopoeia to represent the action. It is considered to belong to the genre of Teatro di narrazione , which is generally said to have begun with Fo's own Mistero Buffo .

American actor Thomas Derrah is also noted for performing an English language version, translated by Ron Jenkins.

Historical Antecedents

The character of Johan Padan is inspired by both the commedia dell'arte characters of Zanni and Harlequin (characters whom Fo frequently draws upon) and by such historical figures as Cabeza de Vaca, Hans Staten, Gonzalo Guerrico and Michele da Cuneo, early European sailors and explorers of the Americas who came to sympathize with the native peoples and often aided them in resisting Europeans.

Translations

Ed Emery has carried out an English translation. [3]

Film adaptation

In 2002, the play was adapted into an animation film directed by Giulio Cingoli, Venetian Rascal Goes to America (Italian: Johan Padan e la descoverta de le Americhe). Rosario Fiorello and the same Fo did the voice work for the title character. [4]

Further reading

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References

  1. ↑ Mitchell 1999, pp. 210–211
  2. ↑ Mitchell 1999, p. 214
  3. ↑ Online translation at: http://www.geocities.ws/dariofoarchive/johanpadan.html
  4. ↑ Paolo Mereghetti. Il Mereghetti - Dizionario dei film. B.C. Dalai Editore, 2010. ISBN   8860736269.
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