Dario Fo and Franca Rame: Artful Laughter. By Ron Jenkins. New York: Aperture, 2001; pp. 211. $45.00 hardcover

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From the first glance, this is a beautiful book. Its cover is provocative, offering the image of Dario Fo's face stretched across the spine of the book, seemingly held in place by buckles and cables that extend across the front and back cover. The inside of the book contains one stunning presentation after another, including a wide variety of photographs of Dario Fo and Franca Rame in performance or at work, as well as drawings and paintings by Fo himself, paintings by the great masters Leonardo da Vinci and Jacapo Tintoretto as interpreted by Fo, and others by Piero della Francesca and Giotto as altered in Fo's adaptations. Moreover, the layout of the text is beautifully designed. The staff of Aperture, and particularly Yolanda Cuomo, the book's designer, have executed its presentation masterfully.