About book The Ubu Plays: Ubu Rex / Ubu Cuckolded / Ubu Enchained (1994)
Author, Author: Alfred Jarry, a French playwright, poet, novelist, artist, general prankster in the French avant-garde, wrote the three plays of Pere Ubu in the 1890s but was to only see one of them preformed in his lifetime. Jarry's legacy included a great influence on the Dadaists and their movement against art using the forms of humor and parody (Jarry's own weapons, though not so specifically focused on a target).The Plays: The Ubu cycle contains three different plays: Ubu Rex (Ubu Roi), Ubu Cuckolded (Ubu Cocu), Ubu Enchained (Ubu Enchaine).Ma and Pa Ubu: The plays revolve around the exploits of these two characters. Though Pa Ubu is the primary "hero" with his huge girth, murderous rage, selfish greed, and lucky stupidity, Ma Ubu is his adulterous counterpart (not to be out done by Pa Ubu's avarice, Ma Ubu steals the money he allots for the feeding of his horse--possibly the only thing Ubu ever loves).Ubu Rex: The first play, which Jarry started during his school days in collaboration with some childhood friends but later developed beyond the joking of children, is a clear parody of Shakespeare's Macbeth with other allusions to and echoes of Oedipus Rex. In this one, Pa Ubu, spurred on by Ma Ubu, murders King Wenceslas. The play follows the structure of Macbeth, but, of course, devoid of the solemn tragedy of the original.Eventually, Pa Ubu becomes king of Poland (a completely fictitious Poland bearing similarities to the real one only in name). He then proceeds to ruin the kingdom.Ubu Cuckolded: The weakest of the three plays to me, sees the Ubus, having escaped Poland and the wrath of Wenceslas's only surviving son, take over the household of a famous scientist Achras, bullying him (and even at one point impaling him) into allowing them free reign of his property and wealth. I find it weaker than the others because it doesn't cohere into a unified story, but it includes some of the most humorous moments in the play cycle where Pa Ubu has conversations with the embodiment of his conscience. Also it contains a scene where, for no apparent reason, a crocodile crosses the stage--a sure foreshadow of the kind of frustration of expectation the Dadaist would later employ.Ubu Enchained: The mature masterpiece of Jarry's talent, written as it was at the age of twenty-six (Jarry died at thirty-four), is a brilliant satire on the ideas of freedom and slavery. The Ubus after their long travels have ended up in the free country of France (as much an artistic creation as Jarry's Poland), where they come to know what freedom means:THREE FREE MEN: We are the Free Men and this is our Corporal.--Three cheers for freedom, rah, rah, rah! We are free.--Let's not forget, it's our duty to be free. Hey! Not so fast, or we might arrive on time. Freedom means never arriving on time--never, never!--for our freedom drills. Let's disobey together . . . No! not together; one, two, three! the first will disobey on the count of one, the second on two, the third on three. That makes all the difference. Let's each march out of step with the other two, however exhausting it may be to keep it up. Let's disobey individually--here comes the corporal of the Free Men!CORPORAL: Fall in!They fall out.Pa Ubu, always one to be contrary, demands to be a slave in this free country and eventually makes such a persuasive argument for slavery that he causes the hilarious downfall of the country's ideals of freedom.Unlike much of the avant-garde drama I've read, Jarry's Ubu Plays are not only interesting artifacts in the history of the evolving ideas of theater but are genuinely funny and his satire of freedom applies even more today to our comfortably affluent lives of consumer imprisonment.Thanks to Melody for introducing me to Jarry
"Merdre!" (in translation: "Pschitt!")The very first word uttered by Pa Ubu proved to be a bit too much for the sensibility of its audience and led to a riot. The incident has since then become one of the most talked about bits of Jarry's life.The audience may not have taken their time to get to know Pa Ubu before passing their judgement, their reaction to him was rather appropriate. Pa Ubu is monstrous and grotesque. A crappy character - literally and metaphorically. His physical form is one horrible amalgamation. His conscience lies cramped in a suitcase, covered in cobwebs (and is later shoved headfirst into a toilet). From Wikipedia:The central character is notorious for his infantile engagement with his world. Ubu inhabits a domain of greedy self-gratification. Jarry's metaphor for the modern man, he is an antihero—fat, ugly, vulgar, gluttonous, grandiose, dishonest, stupid, jejune, voracious, cruel, cowardly and evil....Pa Ubu is a caricature that not only embodies all kinds of human vices, but follows them to the extreme - to the point of being utterly ridiculous. Jarry intended for him to be the perfect anarchist and Pa Ubu plays that role perfectly well. If Ignatius J. Reilly was too disgusting for your appetite, you may want to stay miles away from Pa Ubu.The character of Pa Ubu was born in the minds of a few 15 year olds ridiculing one of their teachers. While Jarry's friends left their teenage jokes behind, Jarry went on to transform this character into one of the forerunners of absurd/surrealist theater. In addition, Jarry's creativity with language has also contributed a few new expletives to the French language. Pa Ubu from a drawing by Alfred Jarry:While Pa Ubu enjoys more popularity, Ma Ubu is just as depraved. She often instigates Pa Ubu into acts of greed and mindless violence. Emerging every now and then to take potshots at Pa Ubu, her character does leave a mark.The first play, Ubu Roi demonstrates greed and absolute abuse of authority at the hands of Pa Ubu. In the third play, Ubu Enchained, science of pataphysics comes into play and spins the concepts of freedom and slavery on their heads. The plays are absurd and can easily be waved off as juvenile farce. To understand what Jarry meant to showcase through these, it helps to read around the plays a little bit. The plays certainly are good for multiple laughs.(3.5 stars.)Bonus linkUbuweb - a place for all things avant-garde and obscure.
Do You like book The Ubu Plays: Ubu Rex / Ubu Cuckolded / Ubu Enchained (1994)?
This anti-play (Ubu Roi, or Rex as titled here) is not so good in itself as in the outrage it created in print and in performance, and the outrage it generated in audiences - a shock for many theatre-goers today, in 1896 it was a complete shock to the system of one of the hippest cities in the world at that time, Paris. And its outrage opened the door for other writers to write as outrageous, and frequently better plays. A must read for any person interested in theatre history - and if you're not, shame on you!
—Jack Hrkach
This was probably the 1st edition of these plays that I read & the 1st bk by Jarry that I read. This is also sometimes (usually?) credited as the 1st "absurdist" play - the progenitor of the Theater of the Absurd later associated w/ Albee & Ionescu. I don't know of any earlier examples so I accept it as such. Given how important to me ABSURDISM is as a way of annihilating & critiqueing the death-trap of pompousity, this bk occupies a glowing place in my pantheon of rebelliousness. It's far from my favorite Jarry - as I'll probably explain elsewhere multiple times - but it's still monumental: a monument to taking the gas out of the inflations of power. Read this & deSade's "120 Days of Sodom" & a few other things & throw any positive illusions about how the powerful act down the toilet.
—tENTATIVELY, cONVENIENCE
bizarre and fun. And I love the bookshelf upon which you have placed it. What a brilliant idea. I may purloin it too if 'tu me permettras'....have no idea whether my schoolboy french has just committed a cardinal error there but 'n'importe '
—B0nnie
