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Ubu Roi (French: [yby ʁwa]; "Ubu the King" or "King Ubu") is a play by French writer Alfred Jarry, then 23 years old. It was first performed in Paris in 1896, by Aurélien Lugné-Poe 's Théâtre de l'Œuvre at the Nouveau-Théâtre (today, the Théâtre de Paris).
- Alfred Jarry, Jean Saltas
- 1961
The play’s scatological references, pompous style, and bastardized French caused the audience to riot when it was first produced in 1896. It was later championed by the Surrealists and Dadaists in the 1920s, who recognized in Ubu roi the first Absurdist drama.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Author Biography
- Plot Summary
- Characters
- Themes
- Style
- Historical Context
- Critical Overview
- Criticism
- Sources
- Further Reading
Alfred Jarry, considered by some to be the father of the theater of the absurd, was born in Laval, France, on September 8, 1873. His father, Anselme, represented a wool factory as a traveling salesman, and his mother (nee Caroline Quernest) was the daughter of a judge. As a youth, Jarry won scholastic prizes in foreign languages and science. But th...
Act I
Pere Ubu, along with Mere Ubu and Captain Bordure, plot the killing of the King of Poland. Pere Ubu poisons Bordure’s men, who have assembled at a sumptuous feast, by providing an excrement covered toilet brush for all to taste. The act ends with Pere Ubu demanding that Mere Ubu, Captain Bordure, and the other conspirators “swear to kill the king properly.”
Act II
Pere Ubu attacks and kills King Venceslas of Poland. Queen Rosemonde and her youngest son, Bougrelas, escape to a mountain cave, but the Queen dies. The dead ancestors appear to Bougrelas and demand vengeance, giving him a large sword. After some prompting from Mere Ubu about sharing some of his newly ill gotten wealth, Pere Ubu throws gold coins to the crowd. Several are trampled in the mad rush. Pere Ubu’s response is to provide more gold as a prize to whoever wins a footrace. Afterwards, P...
Act III
Pere Ubu and Mere Ubu discuss what to do now that they are the sovereigns of Poland. Pere Ubu has decided, now that he no longer has any need of Captain Bordure, not to elevate him to the rank of Duke of Lithuania. Bordure ends up in Pere Ubu’s dungeon but escapes to ally himself with Czar Alexis. Meanwhile, Pere Ubu executes all of Poland’s nobles so that he can then lay claim to theirproperties. Then, he follows suit with the magistrates and the financiers, claiming a reform in both the law...
Captain Bordure
Bourdure kills King Venceslas of Poland, paving the way for Pere Ubu to become the king. Later, Bordure abandons Ubu, goes over to the Russians, and plots the death of Pere Ubu and the reclamation of the Polish throne by Bougrelas with the czar. Pere Ubu recognizes Bordure in the middle of the battle, and, the stage directions indicate, tears him to pieces.
Bougrelas
Bougrelas is the sole surviving son of King Venceslas and Queen Rosemonde. He escapes from the battle with Pere Ubu, receives a visit from all his dead ancestors demanding vengeance, and eventually defeats Pere Ubu and regains the crown.
Queen Rosemonde
Queen Rosemonde tries to warn King Venceslas by recounting one of her dreams. In the dream, Ubu
Absurdity
As a philosophical term, absurdity describes the lack of reasonableness and coherence in humanexistence. As a literary term, absurdity seems to have been coined especially for Pere Ubu. Throughout the play, Pere Ubu appears to be unaware of what is happening around him. Murder, dismemberment, the trampling of a townsperson when Pere Ubu distributes gold—none of these atrocities faze Ubu. The character of Pere Ubu is absurd in another way: his reason for living seems to be to kill everyone; hi...
Art and Experience
Alfred Jarry’s view of a new theater centered on two conditions: the need to “create new life” in the theater by creating a new type of character and the need to transcend the “things that happen all the time to the common man.” Pere Ubu fulfills the definition of the new type of character—as did Jarry himself. Jarry not only wrote the adventures of Pere Ubu, he lived them. He walked like Ubu; he talked in the clipped robotic speech of Ubu. Novelist Andre Gidewrote that Jarry showed no human...
Dadaism
Ubu Roi predates the official founding of Dadaism by about ten years. Nevertheless, Pere Ubu and his alter ego Alfred Jarry seem worthy ancestors to this literary and artistic movement. Dadaism was devoted to the negation of all traditional values in philosophy and the arts. The Dadareview proclaimed
Jarry had definite ideas, not only about the staging for Ubu Roi,but for the theater in general. In an essay, translated by Barbara Wright as “Of the Futility of the Theatrical,” Jarry discusses “a few things which are particularly horrifying and incomprehensible... and which clutter up the stage to no purpose.” It would be dangerous, says Jarry, f...
The New Wave of Arts and Letters
“We want to demolish museums and libraries!” These fighting words come not from the mouth of a fanatic or a terrorist but rather from the pen of Italian poet Emilio Marietti. He, along with other artists and writers, wanted to destroy all that preserved traditional art and learning in Western Europe. These “futurists,” who spurned the value of tradition, wanted to break completely free from the past. They wanted to fashion an entirely new civilization that would divorce itself from the seriou...
Fin de Siecle Political Turmoil
Two major events before World War I that transformed political life in France were the Boulanger Affair and the Dreyfus Affair. General Boulanger attempted to seize power in France in the 1880s. Molded by a carefully orchestrated publicity campaign, Boulanger appeared as the “messiah,” the proverbial knight in shining armor who would save France’s honor at all costs. His play for power failed, however, and Boulanger left France in disgrace amid allegations of treason. Accused of selling milit...
When actor Firmin Gernier stepped forward and spoke his opening line as Pere Ubu—“Merdre!” (often translated as “Shitter!”)—the audience erupted. Some would say the controversy still rages. What those who study late-nineteenth century theater do agree on is that Jarry attacked theatrical realism head-on and things just haven’t been the same since. ...
William P. Wiles
In this essay, Wiles examines Jarry’s play as a ground breaking work, what is considered by many to be the first drama in the Theatre of the Absurd. It is highly doubtful that Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roiwill be performed on a high school stage any time soon. Why then subject it to academic scrutiny in a reference work aimed at the high school audience? The answer, quite simply enough, is because it was the first. In art, establishing a precedent is most important. Once Pere Ubu waddled to the midd...
WHAT DO I READ NEXT?
1. Two works by French author Albert Camus explore the concept of the absurd in modern literature. The Myth of Sisyphus and The Strangeremphasize the psychological implications of the absurd. 2. Waiting for Godot, a play written in French by Irish born playwright Samuel Beckett, is a tragicomedy in which nothing happens except conversations that suggest the meaninglessness of life. Although bleak and austere, the drama is humorous, making a statement about the will to live and the ability to...
Donald Gilman
In the following essay, Gilman provides an overview of Jarry’s play, explaining the plays concepts and themes. In this five-act satirical farce, Jarry adapts the serious story of seizure of power to the comic aims of ridicule and relief. Mere Ubu, playing upon her husband’s bestial instincts, urges him to overthrow Wenceslas, King of Poland. After enlisting Bordure’s assistance, Ubu usurps the throne in the second act, murdering the ruler and his two sons. Bourgelas, one of the King’s sons, e...
Beaumont, Keith. Jarry: Ubu Roi,Grant & Cutler Ltd., 1987. Bell, David F. Romance Notes,Spring, 1975. Breton, Andre. “Alfred Jarry as Precursor and Initiator” in Free Rein,University of Nebraska Press, 1996. Church, Dan M. “Pere Ubu: The Creation of a Literary Type” in Drama Survey,Winter, 1965, pp. 233-43. Goddard, Stephen. “Alfred Jarry (French, ...
http://hamp.hampshire.edu/~ngzF92/jarrypub/commence.html. http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~art/ubu.html. Shattuck, Roger. The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant Garde in France, 1885 to World War I: Alfred Jarry, Henry Rousseau, Erik Satie and Guillaume Apollinair,Random House, 1979.
Ubu Roi, a play by Alfred Jarry, debuted in Paris in December 1896. The play’s opening night at the Théâtrede l’Oeuvre was also its closing night, as a commotion—often described as a “riot”—broke out amongst the audience , who were accustomed to naturalist theatre and were horrified by the play’s shocking and crude nature.
Feb 14, 2020 · The frequent revivals of Alfred Jarry’s classic satire Ubu Roi (Ubu the King) bring this home. It’s a politically resonant exercise in absurdist theatre that feels as fresh today as when it was first staged in 1896. The abuse of political power.
- chris@wealdenwordsmith.co.uk
Jean-Christopher Averty’s television production of Ubu Roi above first aired in 1965. Its content, presumably by then familiar enough to the viewing audience, no longer shocked, but its aesthetic choices still look striking today.
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Nov 21, 2023 · His three greatest creations are the Ubu plays: Ubu Roi (Ubu, the King), which was the first of the plays written and the only to be produced in Jarry's lifetime; Ubu Cocu (Ubu, the...
