- French writer, best known for his play Ubu Roi (1896)
- Ubu Roi known as forerunner to Surrealist and Futurist movements
- Ubu Roi is sometimes translated to 'King Turd', however, the word 'Ubu' is a nonsense word that evolved from the French pronunciation of the name 'Herbert'.
- Herbert was the name of one of Jarry's teachers and the target and inspiration for the first versions of the play.
- People didn't like Ubu Roi, they considered it crude, vulgar and low, and very controversial!
- When it premiered in Paris it was booed for the first 15 minutes after the first word was spoken, which was "Merdre!" This word is deliberately close the the French word "merde" which translates to English as "shit". https://translate.google.co.uk/?hl=en&tab=wT#fr/en/merde
- The play was accused of being politically subversive, the work of an anarchist.
- Jarry didn't care at all, he gave characters names such as "MacNure", "Pissweet" and "Pissale".
- For Jarry, the point was to piss the audience off, to be confrontational, to getunder their skin and wind them up.- Ubu's scepter was a "shit-smeared toilet brush".
- Ubu Roi is Absurdism, which Jarry pretty much created himself.
- Dada led on from this Absurdism movement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubu_Roi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Jarry
http://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_original_theatre_of_the_absurd_ubu_roi_a_lot_like_the_forbidden_zone
No comments:
Post a Comment