The Strada Stretta Concept, under the auspices of the Valletta 2018 Foundation presents ‘Dario Fo A Malta’, monologues & a workshop interpreted by Mario Pirovano, under the artistic direction of Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci.

Date: 15th September 2017, 8:00PM, at Strada Stretta Valletta, near the Splendid. Entrance is free.

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

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 colonizer’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.

Johan Padan will be performed by Mario Pirovano (b.Milan, 20 April 1950) who is an Italian theatrical actor, storyteller, translator and interpreter of Dario Fo’s monologues. His performances contribute to spread Fo’s art in the world.

Mario Pirovano grew up in Pregnana Milanese, a small village just out of Milan. At the age of 12 he worked in a local shop, at the age of 24 he moved to England, where for about 10 years he did all sort of jobs. In 1983 he saw Dario Fo and Franca Rame performing Mistero Buffo at the Riverside Studios in London, and from then on he identified his life with the works of Dario Fo.

Since 1983 Mario Pirovano has taken part in all the works produced by Dario Fo and Franca Rame as an actor or assistant producer, stage director or simultaneous interpreter. In 1987 with Fo and Rame he acted in the programme “Forced Broadcast”, shown in eight episodes on a national television channel (Rai 3). In 1991 he played a part in the film ‘Blue Lights Murder’, director Alfonso Brescia.