Ubu Roi

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     Alfred Jarry's artwork for the program of Ubu Roi, December 10 1896 production at the Théâtre de l'Œuvre, Paris, causing a riot and almost financially ruining the theater.  This outrageous play is frequently produced today.
 
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Act1 Scene I , Poland – that is to say, nowhere.

(Papa Ubu, Mama Ubu).

PAPA UBU. Pshite!
MAMA UBU. Oh! that’s a fine thing. What a pig you are, Papa Ubu!
PAPA UBU. Watch out I don’t kill you, Mama Ubu!
MAMA UBU. It isn’t me you ought to kill, Papa Ubu, it’s someone else.
PAPA UBU. Now by my green candle, I don’t understand.
MAMA UBU. You are so stupid.
PAPA UBU. Now by my green candle, King Wenceslas is very much alive. And suppose he snuffs it – hasn’t he got legions of children?
MAMA UBU. What prevents you from slaughtering the whole family and putting yourself in their place?
PAPA UBU. Ah! Mama Ubu, you do me wrong. Watch out you don’t end up in the soup.
MAMA UBU. Poor unfortunate, when I’m in the soup who’ll patch the seat of your pants?
PAPA UBU. Who cares? Isn’t my arse just like everybody else’s?
MAMA UBU. If I were in your place, I’d want to plant that arse on a throne. You could make lots of money, and eat all the sausages you want.

     'Pshite' is an attempt to translate Jarry's word Merdre, the French noun with an extra R.  The play is based on Macbeth.  When Jarry read a review that said that Ubu was a mockery of all that is decent, he remarked 'Such insight"!  Jarry predated Dada and would have worked just fine as the front man for The Sex Pistols.  Dead at 34.


I first heard of Jarry from the very gifted artist Bill Griffith back in the '70s.  Bill translated Merdre as 'Shitr', which works far better.  Jarry once wrote, expressing some of the bizarre logic of 'pataphysics, "If you let a coin fall and it falls, the next time it is just by an infinite coincidence that it will fall again the same way; hundreds of other coins on other hands will follow this pattern in an infinitely unimaginable fashion." (Wikipedia).  This is, of course, completely in line with modern physics.


L'homme.


L'Roi.


As a delusional stage actor I know a role I was born for when I see it.


Pablo Picasso, Ubu Enchaîné, 1937.
 

Jarry drank heavily and particularly liked absinthe.  When he couldn't afford alcohol he drank ether. 




 Adieu.


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