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Ubu #1-3
The Ubu Plays: Ubu Rex / Ubu Cuckolded / Ubu Enchained
Provoking riots at its opening in 1896, Ubu is acclaimed as the touchstone for the Dada and Surrealist movements, the Theatre of the Absurd, and much of the rest of experimental theatre in the 20th century.
148 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1899
About the author
Alfred Jarry
197 books249 followersAlfred Jarry was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany; he was of Breton descent on his mother's side.
Best known for his play Ubu Roi (1896), which is often cited as a forerunner to the surrealist theatre of the 1920s and 1930s, Jarry wrote in a variety of genres and styles. He wrote plays, novels, poetry, essays and speculative journalism. His texts present some pioneering work in the field of absurdist literature. Sometimes grotesque or misunderstood (i.e. the opening line in his play Ubu Roi, "Merdre!", has been translated into English as "Pshit!", "Shitteth!", "Shittr!", "Shikt!", "Shrit!" and "Pschitt!"), he invented a pseudoscience called 'Pataphysics.
From Wikipedia
Best known for his play Ubu Roi (1896), which is often cited as a forerunner to the surrealist theatre of the 1920s and 1930s, Jarry wrote in a variety of genres and styles. He wrote plays, novels, poetry, essays and speculative journalism. His texts present some pioneering work in the field of absurdist literature. Sometimes grotesque or misunderstood (i.e. the opening line in his play Ubu Roi, "Merdre!", has been translated into English as "Pshit!", "Shitteth!", "Shittr!", "Shikt!", "Shrit!" and "Pschitt!"), he invented a pseudoscience called 'Pataphysics.
From Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 84 reviews
September 2, 2012
"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 link
Ubuweb - a place for all things avant-garde and obscure.
November 29, 2020
I've been curious about Ubu Roi for years. Probably very influential in the development of Surrealism, DADA, Theater of the Absurd, and more. Certainly more influential than any other 19th-century French puppet play.
While it might still be fun to see Ubu Roi performed "live" by puppets, it is not very funny on the page, unless you really love puns about poo-poo. However, the third play, Ubu Enchained actually is funny even on the page, and could be hilarious live. In this play we see more mature writing. Though there are plenty of pee-pee jokes, the inversions of logic is what makes this funny. Ubu no longer wants to be king and now tries to become a slave, though his idea of serving his masters is pretty strange.
Another reviewer took the trouble to type in one of the funny bits. Here is a shortened version THREE FREE MEN: .... 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...
The translations here by Connolly and Taylor are good. But the formatting of the Kindle edition is HORRIBLE. It appears that no human bothered to read it to look for errors from the optical character recognition. As an example "PA UBU" becomes at various times "P A UBU", "P AUBU", "PA U B U", etc. The funniest mistake was when they said that the set designs for Ubu Enchained were created by "Mad Ernst"! Ha! Did the play drive poor Herr Ernst mad?
Four stars here is purely for Ubu Enchained. The others are mainly of historical interest.
While it might still be fun to see Ubu Roi performed "live" by puppets, it is not very funny on the page, unless you really love puns about poo-poo. However, the third play, Ubu Enchained actually is funny even on the page, and could be hilarious live. In this play we see more mature writing. Though there are plenty of pee-pee jokes, the inversions of logic is what makes this funny. Ubu no longer wants to be king and now tries to become a slave, though his idea of serving his masters is pretty strange.
Another reviewer took the trouble to type in one of the funny bits. Here is a shortened version THREE FREE MEN: .... 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...
The translations here by Connolly and Taylor are good. But the formatting of the Kindle edition is HORRIBLE. It appears that no human bothered to read it to look for errors from the optical character recognition. As an example "PA UBU" becomes at various times "P A UBU", "P AUBU", "PA U B U", etc. The funniest mistake was when they said that the set designs for Ubu Enchained were created by "Mad Ernst"! Ha! Did the play drive poor Herr Ernst mad?
Four stars here is purely for Ubu Enchained. The others are mainly of historical interest.
February 22, 2020
I don't know how I found out about Alfred Jarry, but I'm glad I did discover him a good few years ago now, as he writes some uniquely strange stuff which is well worth checking out. This book has the three Ubu plays contained within it- King Ubu (Ubu Roi), Cuckold Ubu (Ubu Cocu) and Slave Ubu (Ubu Enchaine). These plays will appeal to those who enjoy absurdist theatre/writing in general, surrealism and farcical style literature. If you like things like that, then you may find these works provide a few laughs and should at least raise a smile or two. The main character is Pa Ubu and he's kind of a loud-mouth buffoon: sort of endearing and sort of infuriating at the same time and most of the plots tend to revolve around him as other characters get sucked into his bizarre adventures. Some of the other characters include his wife Ma Ubu, the zany Barmpots and then loads of random bit-part types, which all add to the overall fun. To take a random slice from the second play, Cuckold Ubu, on page 74, there are in sequence, characters named- Bumrag, Snotweed, Gripshit, Peardrop and Swankipants the Banker and then we have someone in Slave Ubu called Pisseasy and another chap in King Ubu called General Custard. Its that kind of thing...random, wacky and good fun...
I think for anyone after something quite different to the norm, I'd say give this a go and see what you think, but it is pretty unconventional and I can see a lot of people reading this book with furrowed brow, occasionally shaking their head, with a mystified look plastered across their face...this will likely be most people.
July 29, 2022
Yakın zamanda vefat eden Aydın Doğan’ın (kendi deyimiyle, “emekçi olanı”) yaşattığı Yaba Yayınlarından çıkan en önemli kitaptı bu – Alfred Jarry’nin Übü tiplemesiyle ilgili tüm yapıtları ve karikatüre benzer çizimleri. Rıza Katı’ya da çeviri emeği için teşekkür etmek gerek, çünkü Jarry’nin kelime oyunlarını da dipnotlarla açıklamış. Absürd tiyatronun kilometre taşlarından biri kabul edilen bu oyunların anti-kahramanı Übü Baba; şişman, çirkin, kaba, obur, sahtekâr, aptal, açgözlü, kaprisli, çocuksu, acımasız, korkak ve kötü bir tip – aslında gayet tanıdık, çünkü tarih insanlığa nice Übü’ler gösterdi. Derlemede çok sayıda küçük oyun, diyalog, Jarry’nin yazışmaları ve tiyatro üstüne yazıları da var; ana metinleri aşağıda özetliyorum:
1. Kral Übü (1896)
2. Boynuzlu Übü (1897)
3. Zincirli Übü (1899)
4. Übü Baba’nın 1. Almanağı (1899)
5. Übü Baba’nın 2. Almanağı (1901)
6. Übü Tepede (Kral Übü’nün 2 perdeye kısaltılmışı - 1906)
1. Kral Übü (1896)
2. Boynuzlu Übü (1897)
3. Zincirli Übü (1899)
4. Übü Baba’nın 1. Almanağı (1899)
5. Übü Baba’nın 2. Almanağı (1901)
6. Übü Tepede (Kral Übü’nün 2 perdeye kısaltılmışı - 1906)
February 5, 2010
By my green candle! What an odd fish! Pa Ubu and Ma Ubu are great bloated pigs who do as they wish, whether as king and queen (in Ubu Rex) or as would-be galley slaves in the land of Free Men (in Ubu Enchained). Whether they win or lose, their profound obtuseness carries the day and -- along the way -- serves as the midwife of the modern in the Twentieth Century to follow. Like some Pandors's Box, Jarry's plays, once opened, let out all the absurdity that was tamped down by the Nineteenth. I see now that I must devote my life to the science of Pataphysics so that my Phynances might improve.
May 26, 2020
Important but not terribly enjoyable. Enchained is best.
Read
December 29, 2007Author, 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
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
June 3, 2013
Les premiers balbutiements géniaux de ce qui deviendra le théâtre absurde et la pataphysique sont issus des élans puérils de quelques petits polissons, dont faisait partie Jarry et que ce dernier s'est appropriés pour les jeter au public sous la forme de ces quelques aventures du roi Ubu.
Si les pièces plairont à coup sur au public qui ne demande qu'à se divertir sans réfléchir, le spectateur qui s'attend à y trouver quelques réflexions brillantes sera grandement déçu. Par contre, comme c'est le cas en général pour l'absurde, il est toujours possible d'y mettre ses propres interprétations critiques, politiques, philosophiques, etc., de sorte qu'avec un peu de bonne volonté, chaque spectateur y trouvera son compte. Le style tombe crument et gratuitement dans la facilité et la grossièreté, mais l'inventivité (notamment en matière de langage) qu'on y trouve peut ouvrir plusieurs pistes fécondes à la pensée.
Évidemment, pour un metteur en scène, la pièce est une véritable caverne d'Ali Baba. Avec Ubu, tous les délirs ne sont pas seulement permis, mais encouragés par l'écriture même de la pièce, dont la forme a la (toute relative) qualité d'être on ne peut plus ubuesque que le fond...
Si les pièces plairont à coup sur au public qui ne demande qu'à se divertir sans réfléchir, le spectateur qui s'attend à y trouver quelques réflexions brillantes sera grandement déçu. Par contre, comme c'est le cas en général pour l'absurde, il est toujours possible d'y mettre ses propres interprétations critiques, politiques, philosophiques, etc., de sorte qu'avec un peu de bonne volonté, chaque spectateur y trouvera son compte. Le style tombe crument et gratuitement dans la facilité et la grossièreté, mais l'inventivité (notamment en matière de langage) qu'on y trouve peut ouvrir plusieurs pistes fécondes à la pensée.
Évidemment, pour un metteur en scène, la pièce est une véritable caverne d'Ali Baba. Avec Ubu, tous les délirs ne sont pas seulement permis, mais encouragés par l'écriture même de la pièce, dont la forme a la (toute relative) qualité d'être on ne peut plus ubuesque que le fond...
September 6, 2024
Bien au début ( Ubu Roi) (4 étoiles à ce stade, -0.5 pour passages étranges quand même)
Puis -2 :
Bizarre, redondant, absurde, parfois penible à lire dans les histoires qui suivent
Puis -2 :
Bizarre, redondant, absurde, parfois penible à lire dans les histoires qui suivent
February 10, 2008
It's kindof interesting that Franciszka Themerson illustrated not just one but TWO editions of this Jarry play. I didn't like her 1st version made for New Directions in 1961 that much, I like this one from 9 yrs later more. In the meantime, she designed the stage setting for a Stockholm production in 1964. I mean, either she was really into Ubu Roi or she somehow got pigeonholed as the Ubu Roi visualizer. I'll assume it was the former. Her drawings here, as w/ the ND version, are somewhat deceptively seeming scribbles but there's more to them than one might initially notice. The drawings go outside the comic-bk framing, there are multiple layers & multiple line thicknesses. It seems that she deliberately kept to a 'primitive' style to stay in keeping w/ Jarry's bludgeoningly reductionist parody. I wonder what her style was like otherwise? Did she ever make meticulously rendered drawings for different subjects? Outside of the Ubu Roi context I'm not familiar w/ her at all.
Shelved as 'it-s-about-the-cover'
August 27, 2012le mot merde est utilisé seulement 26 fois dans ce texte...
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16884
Père Ubu:
—Eh bien, capitaine, avez-vous bien dîné?
Capitaine Bordure:
—Fort bien, monsieur, sauf la merdre.
Père Ubu:
—Eh! la merdre n'était pas mauvaise.
Mère Ubu:
—Chacun son goût.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16884
Père Ubu:
—Eh bien, capitaine, avez-vous bien dîné?
Capitaine Bordure:
—Fort bien, monsieur, sauf la merdre.
Père Ubu:
—Eh! la merdre n'était pas mauvaise.
Mère Ubu:
—Chacun son goût.
November 18, 2019
I think it's a 'must-read' for anyone aware of the significance of the time-period it was written in, and the intellectual/artistic movement it was a part of. To fathom that era better, well ...this is a keystone work. Think of it this way: any stage play which provokes a riot in the audience, one should read at least once. The first and longest of the trio is more than a bit juvenile but as you go along, the back-cover blurb really does ring true. Ubu is a metaphor for modern man, the man we've all grown to despise as the Twentieth-Century dawned. Petty, petulant, tantrum-prone, rapacious, puny, vulgar; 'King' Ubu is a monster made monstrous and desolate by modernism. 'Ubu' may be the first foul-mouthed, spoiled little frat-boy in literature, but the conditions which gave cause to him on paper are accurately predicted by the midget Jarry, (who was perhaps the ultimate loner save anyone else except Toulouse-Latrec). We observe those same conditions in western society today, outside the theater. Ubu-ism surrounds us. The chap sitting next to you on the bus or train, is likely an Ubu. More likely than not. So it's all still mighty relevant. In terms of technical presentation, the three plays are somewhat like a series of thin skits from SNL (Saturday Night Live) with that same kind of wearying dollness; except supercharged by the fully explicit ...expletives. Finally: Jarry deploys on flourish I've not seen in any other stage-play: and it's more fun than all the scatological frothing. Some scenes (he specifies overtly to the director) can be 'swapped for other scenes'; he wrote them so as to be interchangeable. Now that was clever.
December 30, 2020
What scandalized a hundred years ago is unremarkable today. Age has divested Ubu Roi and its sequels of their original shock value, and what's left is a series of works without much to recommend them. In short, the writing is unremarkable, the characters are (intentionally) one-note, there's nothing interesting about the plots, and they aren't at all funny unless your sense of humor tends toward the scatological. Depending on what itch you're trying to scratch you're far better off reading Shakespeare or watching South Park than reading these plays. 2/5.
March 7, 2024
Three Stooges meet Shakespeare? Maybe. “Ubu Roi” is the most fun, though I couldn’t say if this is because it’s actually the best or if it just feels that way because it’s first and therefore most surprising.
January 15, 2020
What delightful nonsense
January 4, 2021
Personaggio iconico del teatro moderno, ma meno fortunato di altri suoi simili, Ubu nasce dalla penna di un eccentrico scrittore, Alfred Jarry, quando questi, ancora adolescente, frequenta un rigido collegio francese. Sono le storie narrate sottobanco e le magnificazioni del solidarismo tra compagni a costituire l’humus da cui nascerà questo personaggio pantagruelico, col suo ventre enorme e prominente, che lui stesso ripetutamente chiama “Cornoventraglia”, con i suoi bastoni del potere, con la sua “pompe à merdre”, con cui semina e diffonde la paura e perperta i suoi omicidi. Personaggio borderline ed estremo, con la sua etica disinibita, con la sua logica maccheronica, Padre Ubu non si fa mancare i battibecchi con un’altrettanto elefantiaca Madre Ubu, che continuamente lo rimprovera e anzi, prova a tradirlo, senza però troppi successi. Quando la prima opera dedicata a Ubu, l’”Ubu re”, fu rappresentata alla fine dell’Ottocento, il benpensante pubblico francese fu sconvolto da quel “Merdre” che apre l’opera e che ripetutamente conclude, puntella, esagera le esclamazioni dei protagonisti. Perché Ubu è, prima di tutto, l’incarnazione della volontà parodistica e satirica dell’autore, un personaggio tanto poco definito, quanto infinitamente definibile: si potrebbe consideralo come un semplice burattino, un personaggio ben riuscito e simpatico, oppure si potrebbe rivestirlo di molti simboli: l’arbitrio assoluto del potere, il fanatismo logico e scientifico, il marito geloso, l’epopea della libertà nell’immaginario francese, perché tutto in Padre Ubu è sconsacrato e messo alla berlina.
Quello di Ubu è un ciclo di quattro opere teatrali: apre l’Ubu re, che già nel titolo richiama e parodìa la celebre opera sofoclea e che allo stesso tempo recupera il modello altissimo del Macbeth shakespeariano per ridurre tutto il dilemma del potere a sfrenata parodia; segue l’”Ubu incatenato”, forse la più riuscita delle opere, nella quale il modello è il “Prometeo incatenato” di Eschilo e nella quale si crea un divertente cortocircuito tra la libertà e la schiavitù, fino a invertire i due concetti; minori e forse meno riuscite le altre due commedie, “Ubu in collina”, sintesi più pittoresca dell’”Ubu re” e l’”Ubu cornuto”, in cui la moglie del nostro incontenibile protagonista lo tradisce niente di meno che con un africano, per scandalizzare ancora di più l’orgoglio della società e quello di Padre Ubu.
Merita attenzione anche lo stile molto creativo di Jarry, la sua capacità inventiva notevole, i neologismi, i curiosi accostamenti verbali, la capacità di usare le ripetizioni per amplificare le scene e contemporaneamente per farle esplodere, o ancora gli inserti “musicali”, canzoncine, filastrocche sadiche, i personaggi di contorno che spesso compaiono anche solo per un istante, quasi senza motivo. Certo i libri non toccano vette troppo alte e non credo giovi troppo volerle rivestire di infiniti significati; piuttosto meglio figurasi le scene e sorridere, anche se qualche volta a denti stretti, dell’esuberante prestanza di padre Ubu. Degno di nota che Jarry, morto anche giovane, fu fondatore della “patafisica”, scienza delle soluzioni immaginarie, come ebbe a dire, una scienza che sconsacra la scienza e che trascende la metafisica. Non so se la patafisica fosse per Jarry un’idea seria o piuttosto un divertissement quasi serio, ma certo è che oggi esistono siti e scuole e libri dedicati alla patafisica e Ubu, non a caso, che della patafiisca è il massimo realizzatore, è il loro nume tutelare. Destino curioso per un personaggio nato forse solo per prendere in giro un professore troppo maligno.
Quello di Ubu è un ciclo di quattro opere teatrali: apre l’Ubu re, che già nel titolo richiama e parodìa la celebre opera sofoclea e che allo stesso tempo recupera il modello altissimo del Macbeth shakespeariano per ridurre tutto il dilemma del potere a sfrenata parodia; segue l’”Ubu incatenato”, forse la più riuscita delle opere, nella quale il modello è il “Prometeo incatenato” di Eschilo e nella quale si crea un divertente cortocircuito tra la libertà e la schiavitù, fino a invertire i due concetti; minori e forse meno riuscite le altre due commedie, “Ubu in collina”, sintesi più pittoresca dell’”Ubu re” e l’”Ubu cornuto”, in cui la moglie del nostro incontenibile protagonista lo tradisce niente di meno che con un africano, per scandalizzare ancora di più l’orgoglio della società e quello di Padre Ubu.
Merita attenzione anche lo stile molto creativo di Jarry, la sua capacità inventiva notevole, i neologismi, i curiosi accostamenti verbali, la capacità di usare le ripetizioni per amplificare le scene e contemporaneamente per farle esplodere, o ancora gli inserti “musicali”, canzoncine, filastrocche sadiche, i personaggi di contorno che spesso compaiono anche solo per un istante, quasi senza motivo. Certo i libri non toccano vette troppo alte e non credo giovi troppo volerle rivestire di infiniti significati; piuttosto meglio figurasi le scene e sorridere, anche se qualche volta a denti stretti, dell’esuberante prestanza di padre Ubu. Degno di nota che Jarry, morto anche giovane, fu fondatore della “patafisica”, scienza delle soluzioni immaginarie, come ebbe a dire, una scienza che sconsacra la scienza e che trascende la metafisica. Non so se la patafisica fosse per Jarry un’idea seria o piuttosto un divertissement quasi serio, ma certo è che oggi esistono siti e scuole e libri dedicati alla patafisica e Ubu, non a caso, che della patafiisca è il massimo realizzatore, è il loro nume tutelare. Destino curioso per un personaggio nato forse solo per prendere in giro un professore troppo maligno.
December 11, 2011
The three core texts of Ubu form a trilogy of sorts. Ubu Rex is the forerunner of the dictator novel. Ubu Cuckolded - a play that's more a segue than a sequel - is The Empire Strikes Back, with the premature appearance of Ewoks. Ubu Enchained is The Return of the King, the best part of the lot.
Ubu is an amoral character and "crappy creature". In the first play, Pa Ubu, with his equally base partner Ma Ubu, usurped the throne of the king of Poland. As the new king, he pursued more acts of cruelty and greed, satisfying all his base appetites. When Ubu Rex was originally performed in Paris in 1896, the utterance of the first word of the play (Merdre, which without the extra "r", is "Shit" in French) provoked a riot of its audience. The riot lasted some 15 minutes.
In Ubu Cuckolded, Pa Ubu invaded the privacy of another person in not-so-subtle means. The final play Ubu Enchained was the height of slapstick. It started as a straightforward case of mistaken identity. Then along the way, it unravelled as a psychotic parable or allegory of malcontents. A utopian society was born, a place where freedom and slavery coexist, where the master is enslaved by the slave, and where the slave prevailed. It was the culmination of the wretchedness of Ubu.
The 3 plays are the best of satires. Their comedies are without let-up. The book also contained Jarry's writings on the theater as prefatory pages. My further impressions of the book are posted here .
Ubu is an amoral character and "crappy creature". In the first play, Pa Ubu, with his equally base partner Ma Ubu, usurped the throne of the king of Poland. As the new king, he pursued more acts of cruelty and greed, satisfying all his base appetites. When Ubu Rex was originally performed in Paris in 1896, the utterance of the first word of the play (Merdre, which without the extra "r", is "Shit" in French) provoked a riot of its audience. The riot lasted some 15 minutes.
In Ubu Cuckolded, Pa Ubu invaded the privacy of another person in not-so-subtle means. The final play Ubu Enchained was the height of slapstick. It started as a straightforward case of mistaken identity. Then along the way, it unravelled as a psychotic parable or allegory of malcontents. A utopian society was born, a place where freedom and slavery coexist, where the master is enslaved by the slave, and where the slave prevailed. It was the culmination of the wretchedness of Ubu.
The 3 plays are the best of satires. Their comedies are without let-up. The book also contained Jarry's writings on the theater as prefatory pages. My further impressions of the book are posted here .
November 26, 2017
I'd heard of Jarry a few years ago, in a lecture presentation that talked at length about his strange life and works. A man ahead of his time, an iconoclast and jester whose first play, Ubu Roi, caused outrage with its very first word. Coming to these texts over a century after they were first written, they definitely seem to be of a later era, after surrealism and high-minded farce in comedy had become trendy. As a result, a lot of the jokes and strangeness don't have much of an impact on me reading in 2017. The translator took several liberties, which he describes and justifies at length, and for the most part they make sense. His rendering of Ubu and his wife as bellowing, screeching cockneys was a little distracting, though.
It's hard not to admire Jarry's dedication to the odd cacophony of the plays, and the edition I read contained a reworked, abridged adaption for puppet-show that showed how the language and humour evolved over the course of Jarry's career. I'm glad I read these, to know what all the fuss was about as much as to enjoy them myself. While they don't hold up so much as plays to read, I bet a stage adaption would be entertaining and bizarre.
It's hard not to admire Jarry's dedication to the odd cacophony of the plays, and the edition I read contained a reworked, abridged adaption for puppet-show that showed how the language and humour evolved over the course of Jarry's career. I'm glad I read these, to know what all the fuss was about as much as to enjoy them myself. While they don't hold up so much as plays to read, I bet a stage adaption would be entertaining and bizarre.
April 10, 2014
Upon reading The Banquet Years, you come away with the impression that Alfred Jarry's literary masterwork may be his own life, lived in hilarious and absurd character as the monstrous Pere Ubu. Reading the actual Ubu plays on which he based his real-life character, I'm not inclined to disagree. I read the first two, and the effect was something like getting back from summer vacation and listening to your friends crack each other up with a bunch of in-jokes they invented while you were away. These are his most famous works, but mostly because of the scandal the first play caused when it was performed. To me they just came off as half baked and not ready for a general audience. I was hoping for something either more absurd or more biting and these plays struck me as an unsatisfying and watered down medium between the two. Still, the first two Ubu plays were written pretty early on in his career, when he was in his late teens I think, so I haven't given up all hope that there's an Alfred Jarry gem to be found somewhere.
February 10, 2008
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.
December 12, 2014
I can't imagine that I would have enjoyed any of these 3 plays on their own. Ubu Rex, especially, was pretty flat and predictable, and I didn't really enjoy any of it until the fight with the bear at the end. It seemed to derive its content almost exclusively from fart puns. Cuckolded got a little weirder, with more characters coming back from the dead, interacting with their own consciences, bizarre contraptions, etc. Enchained was amazing, with good jokes, madcap reversals of power and obedience, explorations of unfettered greed and vanity, and pointless dead-end plot twists. I don't know whether Jarry intended for the three to be understood as a sequence, but I felt that each part needed the others to grow to an awesome climax of face-melting thoughtful weirdness.
March 23, 2016
Kralj Ubu: 2/5
Ubu rogonja: 1/5
Ubu uznik 4/5
Definitivno najbolji zadnji dio trilogije. Vrlo čudna i groteskna drama što je i očekivano jer se radi o pretečama dadaizma i nadrealizma. Čak i preteča crtanog filma, rekao bih (likovi bivaju ubijeni, pa oživljavaju, raspolovljeni se opet spajaju i sl.) Ima tu svakakvih inovacija od jezika, do stila i tematike, ali u suštini previše apsurdno za moj (očito nemaštoviti) mozak. Mislim da ovakav komad puno bolje izgleda na pozornici. Ovo je također jedno od onih djela koja se nerijetko uzimaju u ruke zbog same autorove ličnosti. Jarry je bio ekscentrik, alkoholičar, nosio sa sobom revolver i oblačio se kao cirkusant i bio visok svega 152 cm. Sve to, zasigurno, pridonosi pozitivističkom interesu za njegov opus.
Ubu rogonja: 1/5
Ubu uznik 4/5
Definitivno najbolji zadnji dio trilogije. Vrlo čudna i groteskna drama što je i očekivano jer se radi o pretečama dadaizma i nadrealizma. Čak i preteča crtanog filma, rekao bih (likovi bivaju ubijeni, pa oživljavaju, raspolovljeni se opet spajaju i sl.) Ima tu svakakvih inovacija od jezika, do stila i tematike, ali u suštini previše apsurdno za moj (očito nemaštoviti) mozak. Mislim da ovakav komad puno bolje izgleda na pozornici. Ovo je također jedno od onih djela koja se nerijetko uzimaju u ruke zbog same autorove ličnosti. Jarry je bio ekscentrik, alkoholičar, nosio sa sobom revolver i oblačio se kao cirkusant i bio visok svega 152 cm. Sve to, zasigurno, pridonosi pozitivističkom interesu za njegov opus.
June 17, 2013
Uno podría quedarse tranquilo y disfrutar de una obra como Ubu Roi y admirarla.
En México desafortunadamente los gobernantes, banqueros, políticos, generales del ejército, directivos de hacienda, directores del sidicato de maestros etc, son mini Padres Ubónes que tienen al país en la más rídicula y triste situación.
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One could keep cool and enjoy such a work like Ubo Roi and admire it.
Unfortunately in Mexico, the bankers, governors, politicians, army generals, IRS directors, etc, are all mini Pere Ubus that have the country in the most ridiculous and sad situation.
They are all white collar thieves.
En México desafortunadamente los gobernantes, banqueros, políticos, generales del ejército, directivos de hacienda, directores del sidicato de maestros etc, son mini Padres Ubónes que tienen al país en la más rídicula y triste situación.
----------------------------------
One could keep cool and enjoy such a work like Ubo Roi and admire it.
Unfortunately in Mexico, the bankers, governors, politicians, army generals, IRS directors, etc, are all mini Pere Ubus that have the country in the most ridiculous and sad situation.
They are all white collar thieves.
August 7, 2010
Ubu Rex is bland and unfunny, a boring piece of juvenilia useful only as an artifact. Ubu Cuckolded is more of the same. Ubu Enchained, however, is a mature dramatic work in the vein of some of the classic BBC comedies (Monty Python, Dr. Who, etc.) and is quite worth reading in that it's pretty hilarious.
I'll buy Faustroll or the Supermale once I can, because I have faith that Jarry's works will become a staple of my library in time, but the Jarry shown in Ubu Rex is not the Jarry Breton gloated about in Les Pas Perdus.
I'll buy Faustroll or the Supermale once I can, because I have faith that Jarry's works will become a staple of my library in time, but the Jarry shown in Ubu Rex is not the Jarry Breton gloated about in Les Pas Perdus.
August 14, 2015
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!
November 28, 2007
I haven't read these since college, but was doing some research for a project and decided to dig into them again. I enjoyed them even more now than I did 20+ years ago! The mix between commedia del'arte and theatre of the absurd is wonderful. The political humor and satire is something I just never appreciated the last time a read it.
This kind of theatre isn't for everybody, I understand ... but I really enjoyed it!
This kind of theatre isn't for everybody, I understand ... but I really enjoyed it!
July 14, 2008
Jarry was an inspired lunatic absinthe-head who devised the science of 'pataphyics, "the science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments." Yes, these plays began as juvenile, Rabelasian lampoons of one of Jarry's professors, but they transcend their humble beginnings to take on a sort of hilarious, universal nature that seems more prophetic with every passing year. Cheers to Jarry!
January 3, 2011
Fascinating farce. Read as research for something ridiculous I was writing and it helped to understand the mechanics of the foolish and incomprehensible. All three stories are of varying interest. King Ubu stands out for its simplicity and silliness while Cuckold Ubu and Slave Ubu seem to be far more controlled. Well worth a read.
May 22, 2013
These puppet plays were so damn funny that I still pull out the book every once in a while to torture my friends and family. Of course, I have to perform them. Perhaps my little girl will also join in the fun in a few years. Very dark humor, of course, but I don't think it would be much of a stretch to have them made by an Anime company in Japan.
January 16, 2016
Ubu Roi: 3.0
Ubu Cocu: 2.0
Ubu Enchaine: 4.5
Enchaine proves to be the pinnacle of the Ubu Trilogy; it is the first of the three plays to combine the irreverence of Jarry's absurd Ubu with an outlandish and witty critique of contemporary politics. Ubu Cocu is not notable, other than for its slight, but underdeveloped, lampooning of the ideas of conscience.
Ubu Cocu: 2.0
Ubu Enchaine: 4.5
Enchaine proves to be the pinnacle of the Ubu Trilogy; it is the first of the three plays to combine the irreverence of Jarry's absurd Ubu with an outlandish and witty critique of contemporary politics. Ubu Cocu is not notable, other than for its slight, but underdeveloped, lampooning of the ideas of conscience.
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