Ubu Roi

By Alfred Jarry

When it first opened in Paris in late 1896, Ubu Roi immediately outraged audiences with its scatological references and surrealist style. Spectators rioted during the premiere (and final) performance and unrelenting controversy over the play's meaning followed. The quality and stunning impact of the work, however, was never questioned.
Early drafts of the play were written by Jarry in his teens to ridicule one of his teachers. The farce was done in the form of stylized burlesque, satirizing the tendency of the successful bourgeois to abuse his authority and become irresponsibly complacent. Ubu — the cruel, gluttonous, and grotesque main character (the author's metaphor for modern man) — anticipated characteristics of the Dada movement. In the 1920s, Dadaists and Surrealists championed the play, recognizing Ubu Roi as the first absurdist drama.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: Apr 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9780486112558

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Reviews for Ubu Roi

[coffeezombie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This classic work of absurdist theater is the story of Pere Ubu, a monstrous, cowardly caricature of middle-class values who murders and devours his way into ruling Poland. The New Directions edition presents the play in a handwritten form covered in illustrations. This creates interesting art document, but makes some passages needlessly difficult to comprehend.

[391_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Although Ubu Roi is a breath of fresh air away from the realism and naturalism of most 19th century dramatic literature, I found I couldn't read it as a straight play. I need a director's touch, a visual element of some sort, to stay connected to the piece. Without it, I found myself bored to tears within the first thirty pages, as it travels so heavily over the ground it's already covered.

[caseybp · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

At a time when everything seems absurd, this play casts a shining light on society and government. As long as systems of government are corrupt this, this play will have meaning.

[squealermusic-893611 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Silly, but I had to finally read it.

[paulagraph · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Ubu roi is first and foremost a piece of theater and thus is better seen in performance than read. I first heard of this play during a lecture by Jean Baudrillard at Columbia back in 2005. Baudrillard claimed to be a pataphysician, a "philosophy" that he traced back to Alfred Jarry's Ubu roi. I don't claim to even now have a firm grasp of exactly what pataphysics "means" (neither Baudrillard nor Ubu roi were (are) particularly illuminating on the subject) other than that it purports to be the "science of imaginary solutions" and parodies the theory and methods of modern science. What this has to do with Ubu roi itself is a bit mystifying, other than that both philosophy and play are "expressed in nonsensical language."
In any case, I first read the play when the folio edition accidentally came my way (I believe a friend's son had read it in a French class). Accident, absurdity and contradiction are intrinsic both to the philosophy and the play, so my accidental reading of it was in synch with the work itself. In December 2008 a local experimental theater group in Santa Rosa, The Imaginists, staged Ubu Roi in their converted storefront theater. I attended and must admit that the play is quite entertaining as theater, since it incorporates masks, puppets, and all manner of slapstick and buffoonery. And so, of course, I had to re-read the play after seeing it performed. I had the same reaction to the play as text on a second reading that I had on the first. The play is billed (and blurbed) as having become "a universal symbol of the absurdity of power, despotism and cruelty." In short, an updated version of the old tale of the Emperor Who Has No Clothes. Nothing too revolutionary but fun to watch when performed by a talented crew such as The Imaginists. Leave the book on the shelf and get thee to the theater would be my advice.

[marek2010_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Scatalogical, avant garde fun, well ahead of its time. I have a ticket to see it at the Barbican, but probably won’t be able to go so I read it instead. I didn’t realise it was written in 1896 as it looks forward to Surrealism/Dadaism etc. The Dover edition translated pere Ubu as Papa Turd, which was a bit off putting, but otherwise a very good edition.