Ubu Plays: Ubu Rex; Ubu Cuckolded; Ubu Enchained; Writings on the Theatre

(Paperback, New Edition - New ed)

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Alfred Jarry (1873-1907) is now regarded as the founder of modern avant-garde theatre and a seminal influence on the French surrealist movement. This volume contains modern translations of the three cardinal Ubu texts: "Ubu Roi", "Ubu Cocu" and "Ubu Enchaine" as well as a selection of Jarry's theatre writings. When "Ubu Roi" was first performed in Paris on 10 December 1896 the riot which followed it ushered in the modern era of the theatre. After that night, when Firmin Gemier - playing Ubu - strode to the footlights and roared: "Merde!" at the audience, Ubu became a force to be reckoned with in literature, art and politics. Jarry wrote more exploits for him and even took to acting the role of Ubu in his own brief, strange life.

Author Bio

Alfred Jarry (1873-1907) was a French writer, best known for his 1896 farce Ubu Roi, which began as a collaborative schoolboy satire on a physics teacher and is often considered to be a forerunner to the surrealist theatre movement of the early twentieth century. With its savage mockery of the French bourgeoisie and blatant disregard for theatrical form and convention, Jarry's work also influenced the Theatre of the Absurd.