ABSTRACT
The Franca Rame family performed in their own wooden theatre in the towns and villages of Lombardy, the Veneto, and Piedmont regions of northern Italy. It is well-known that Rame was born into the famiglia Rame, a family of well-established strolling players who toured extensively across northern Italy for several generations. References to the cultural and theatrical 'dowry' Franca brought to Dario Fo at the time of their marriage are scattered throughout the many pages written about them. Dario and Franca echoed the Rame family tradition from the very start of the creation of the Compagnia Fo-Rame, their first theatre company set up in 1957 in Milan, after two years spent 'on loan' to the film industry in Rome. From 1970 onwards, Dario and Franca moved further to the political left and created the Collettivo Teatrale La Comune which had its main cultural headquarters in an industrial hangar, the Capannone in Milan.
