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Director's Note | Legend of Ubu
WMFE Arts Connection Interview
The Ledger
Published Thursday, September 28, 2006
Crude, Juvenile, Highly Offensive --`Ubu Roi' Was All That and More
ORLANDO Watching the recent production of the French play "Ubu Roi," I happened to glance a few times at a guy sitting across from me. He looked like a college student. He also looked completely bewildered. His chin was hanging down in a kind of perplexed, mystified way. I could tell the play was sailing right over his head and he was wondering what the heck he'd been dragged into.
A few seats away from me, a young woman, probably also a college student, had been laughing almost nonstop for the entire 90-minute production. On a Friday night, this show attracted an almost entirely young, college-aged crowd, and you could tell the play split them right down the middle: either love it for what it is, or . . . Huh?
That didn't surprise me. "Ubu Roi" is as strange as its title, a totally adventuresome comedy that adopts anarchy as its true raison d'etre -- not necessarily in the political sense, although this is a very political play, but in an artistic sense.
Crude, juvenile, at times moronic, highly offensive and unabashedly goofy, "Ubu Roi" is the kind of play that makes no effort to accommodate the audience; you're either going to love the show's originality or cringe and feel the whole thing is interminable.
As with any comedy that strives to be original, not everything worked, in my view. But I still count myself among those who went with the spirit of the show rather than felt befuddled by it. It's nice to know that in a city as conservative as Orlando -- compared to say Manhattan, Seattle or San Francisco -- a play like this can find its way alongside the traditional run of family-oriented musicals or audience-friendly Broadway revivals.
"Ubu Roi" was staged by director John DiDonna and his Empty Spaces Theatre Co., whose recent productions have included traditional dramas like "Oedipus" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?" to "Stripped," an intriguing, sometimes downbeat and original docudrama on the life of women who perform in strip clubs.
In his playbill notes, DiDonna writes that "after three serious shows in a row, we needed a little silliness in our lives." That's the spirit in which they approached the show, and they definitely stayed true to it.
Now, the play itself. "Ubu Roi" is the work of Alfred Jarry and had its premiere in Paris in 1986. Jarry had a true take-no-prisoners style that included low comedy, vulgarity and gore -- collectively, a thumbing of his nose at royalty, high society and any and all political leaders. That comes through loud and clear in the story of King Ubu, who is greedy, cowardly and stupid.
In a spoof of sorts of Shakespeare's "Macbeth," Ubu murders a king and takes over his throne, with disastrous comedic results.
Not surprisingly, Jarry's very anti-establishment play caused a riot on opening night, and the play was forbidden to be performed after that. Jarry moved the production to a puppet theater and later created two sequels, "Ubu Cocu" and "Ubu Enchaine."
"Ubu Roi" is a wildly experimental play that's been credited with being the theatrical precursor to the absurdity, surrealist and Dada art movements that would help inspire everything from the artwork of Salvador Dali to the films of Luis Bunuel and Roman Polanski to the music of Frank Zappa.
Bad taste? Perhaps, in the eyes of some. Offensive? Most definitely. But boring? Not even close.
"Ubu Roi" wasn't forgotten, either. A 1960s paperback edition of the play was a hit, and in 1996 William Kentridge adopted the play into "Ubu Roi and the Truth Commission," which criticized the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission that had been created to investigate the atrocities committed during apartheid. "Ubu Roi's" anarchist approach has made it a popular choice as a vehicle for political protest.
DiDonna's version seemed to me less interested in using Jarry's play for specific comments on today's political controversies -- although the fallen king slain by Ubu does have an oddly familiar Texas twang -- as in satirizing all political leaders, regardless of party or ideology. And while the play moves at a lightning-fast speed and hardly ever lets up, some moments seem far more inspired and entertaining than others.
But if the source material isn't consistently clever, the staging is a real treat. To begin with, DiDonna made a great choice in his two leads.
Bobbie Bell is just sensational as Ubu, a monstrosity of all humanity's worst qualities rolled up into one loathsome man. Bell is so funny playing the vindictive, crude, and bombastic Ubu that he almost single-handed carries the show -- almost.
I say that because Peg O'Keef, one of Orlando's best performers, is wonderful as his wife. These are two performers who could stage "Macbeth" with great talent and conviction, and yet have no qualms about taking on this show's ultra-low-grade humor -- and doing it with relish. I think it takes a lot of courage to throw yourself with no abandon into a show this outrageous, and to do it well.
DiDonna also throws in a lot of clever touches -- audience participation, Groucho Marx gags, a spoof on some old Benny Hill skits, nightmares in the woods and dead bears and rubber chickens . . . You name it, this show has it.
It's not always audience friendly and it is an acquired taste, I'll admit. But not all theater has to be traditional, I think, to be entertaining.
"Ubu Roi" just completed a short run at the Lowndes Shakespeare Center in downtown Orlando. For more on Empty Space Theatre Company's future productions, check out its Web site at www.emptyspacestheatre.org .
Michael W. Freeman can be reached at Michael.Freeman@ theledger.com or at 863-421-5577.
Orlando Weekly Review:
9/14/2006
WELL DUNG
Empty Spaces lets the shit fly
By Al Krulick
Photo Shani Lucas
There was a time in the cultural history of Western man when audiences would display their displeasure over a particular piece of art by committing mayhem. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, for example, actual riots broke out when theater crowds became incensed over some visionary's attempt to break the rules governing what was acceptable in their beloved art form. (This, of course, was before the European masses took up more satisfying forms of social rebellion, such as rioting at soccer games or igniting world wars.)
In 1896, a theater riot broke out in Paris during the opening night performance of Ubu Roi , Alfred Jarry's revolutionary and experimental play. Ubu Roi not only challenged the prevailing bourgeois predilection for realism on the stage, but also was unapologetic in its lack of respect to royalty, religion and society, and in its vulgarity, scatology and brutality. In fact the trouble began immediately after the play's fat, flatulent protagonist, Pere Ubu, uttered its opening word: “Merdre!”, a bastardized pronunciation of the French exclamation “Shit!”
Depending upon one's point of view, things went either swiftly downhill or mightily upward from then on. Historians point to Jarry's groundbreaking opus as the precursor to new movements in the art world — Absurdism, Dadaism and Surrealism, for instance — as well as for opening bold and innovative directions in theater, chiefly the Grand Guignol movement which held sway in Paris for the first few decades of the new century. The audience in Jarry's time, however, was not so prescient. The play never made it beyond its opening night.
The original script for Ubu Roi (or King Ubu ) was written by the young Jarry and his schoolmates as a rather cruel burlesque of a hated teacher who represented to the youngsters all that was ugly and repressive. Years later, Jarry had the notion to put the puerile drama into a form that utilized its juvenile aspects — fart jokes, toilet humor, name-calling, endless scrapping, fighting and childish game-playing — while elevating its theatrical and thematic purpose: depicting kings and rulers as duplicitous, cowardly, power-mad, immature thugs, and war as a stupid exercise no more glorious than the meanest and dirtiest school-yard brawl.
The rarely produced play is being given a wildly comic and brazenly theatrical revival, a century after its premiere, by John DiDonna, Seth Kubersky and their Empty Spaces Theatre Company. Knowing that audiences will no longer be shocked by the work's crass uncouthness and tasteless impropriety, director DiDonna wisely invites the audience into Jarry's infantile universe as co-conspirators, even having his troupe pass out rubber fart sound–making toys, to help unlock the boisterous buffoonery that will be the evening's main course.
And what a joyous feast lies in wait! The production is a banquet of inventive movement, brilliant clowning, shameless overplaying and skillful ensemble acting that extracts all the pleasures from Jarry's jumbled and inarticulate script. Bobbie Bell is brilliant as Ubu, the vain, cowardly, selfish, stubborn, treacherous and ultimately despicable king whose taste for corruption is on par with a 2-year-old's penchant for getting his whiny way. Peg O'Keef is a hoot as the overly endowed Mère Ubu, and Joe Comino excels as the sexy, manic second-in-command, Bordure.
Ultimately, the production's animated theatricality prevails as the plot meanders hopelessly from one absurd scene to the next. In one instance, with Empty Spaces' working ethos powering the ensemble's creative juices, the company creates the evening's most inventive mimetic: Ubu disposing of victim after victim into a comic torture chamber made from a gymnasium of twisting, bouncing and gyrating bodies.
One would be wise not to miss this “riotous” entertainment. Even Jarry might have exclaimed, “Holy merde! C'est la droll shit.”
A classic work is reinvented in all its juvenile glory --------------------
Rebecca Swain Vadnie
Orlando
Sentinel Staff Writer
September 8, 2006
In a nondescript warehouse off a tiny road in Altamonte Springs , a reporter steps into a small waiting room clutching e-mailed directions. She has been invited to sit in on a rehearsal for Empty Spaces Theater Company's production of Alfred Jarry's odd classic Ubu Roi.
Her hand pauses on the door handle leading to the rehearsal space. A weird chant is coming from the room.
All hail King Ubu! All hail King Ubu!"
The door's glass panels have been covered up with packing tape, cardboard and white paper, so it's impossible to see what's happening. This strange, rhythmic chanting gets more intense. The reporter flings the door open and hopes for the best.
"ALL HAIL KING UBU! ALL HAIL KING UBU!"
Inside a cluttered space, an eclectic group of actors dances around an older man with long silvery hair. Bobbie Bell -- who plays Pere Ubu -- is at the center of the rabble, dressed in black shorts, black T-shirt and black socks, pulled up to his knees so just a patch of pale knob shows. His hair flies out around his head as he moves, and the look on his face is one of salacious glee.
The reporter slips into an empty chair salvaged from an '80s-era dinette and watches the play unfold. By the end of the first act of Ubu Roi, it's clear why the piece opened to riots when it debuted in 1896. Even the denizens of Paris ' bohemian Montmarte neighborhood were shocked by Jarry's unsettling and, at times, obscene upending of literary and artistic norms. It's a theatrical mashup of schoolyard legends and Shakespeare's MacBeth, filled with all the things that would make a 15-year-old boy laugh.
Something less serious
After a series of serious plays such as Oedipus the King and exotic-dance docudrama Stripped, director John DiDonna and producing partner Seth Kubersky say they were more than ready for something such as Ubu.
"It's nice to do something that's broad comedy," Kurbersky says.
The production began with a new version of the original script, translated by Courtney Hess and adapted by DiDonna. With additional contributions such as movement by Ana DeMers and music by Kevin Becker -- regular Empty Spaces collaborators -- the production will be performed in the round at Mandell Studio Theater at the Lowndes Shakespeare Center .
Alfred Jarry may seem a bit obscure, even for a company known for its offbeat choices.
"The playful nature of Jarry really hit us -- it's the base essence of theater. [Ubu Roi] just fit the Empty Spaces mold. There are no stars, just the ensemble," DiDonna says.
"And just because we wanted to do a stupid play," he adds, smiling.
Though Ubu had only two stagings during Jarry's lifetime, it inspired several major 20th-century "isms" including absurdism, surrealism and dadaism.
Pere Ubu is an overweight, stupid and amoral man with a penchant for passing wind; Lady MacBeth-like Mere Ubu (played in this production by Peg O'Keef) is outfitted with a gigantic set of faux breasts that would make Pamela Anderson jealous.
As if to deflate any intellectual thoughts one might have, Pere Ubu lets one fly on the stage -- not literally, of course, but it's enough. His flatulence skills and imaginary body odor are wielded against other characters like weapons of mass destruction. Emphasis on the mass.
And like a teenager with a juvenile sense of humor, the reporter snickers. When this rehearsal is over, there won't be any riots, just a quick round of notes from director DiDonna, and then the actors can go.
It might take other observers a little longer to recover from their brush with the silly and strange world of Ubu Roi. Unless they grin, make their best "It wasn't me!" face and join right in.
Rswain@Orlandosentinel.Com Copyright (c) 2006, Orlando Sentinel
Ink 19 Review:
Ubu Roi
By Alfred Jerry
Directed by John DiDonna and Seth Kubersky
Starring Bobby Bell and Peg O'Keefe
Empty Spaces Theatre Company at Orlando UCF Shakespeare Festival
Article by
Charles F. Gauze
What do you call a film that no one ever watched, but everyone speaks of knowingly? It's a classic, and Ubu Roi falls right in the stage section of that category. First presented 110 years ago, it only ran twice but provoked riots and got banned. We don't have that level of commitment to art these days, as you can't even get a Fringe show shut down without violating fire code. Art and entertianment has progressed in this century, even if politics and human folly has stayed constant. And today absurdism is a minor industry.
Here's the log line: Pere Ubu ( Bell ) conspires to kill the King of Poland (John Bateman), then loses all to the Russians when he fails to pay his bribes. Simple enough, and it's the telling not the tale that makes the show. Mere Ubu (O'Keefe) occasionally gives advice, but it's the oath taken on here size 44 boobs that seal the demise of gassy hubby. Pere Ubu's indicted co-conspirator Bordure (Joe Comino) straps a plunger on his crotch, and takes the fall when needed. Brett Carson makes a corpulent yet fashionable Czar of Russia with his pants around his legs and sequined red boxers. A dozen other refugees from Rocky Horror re-enactments and the Fringe circuit fill in the gaps, and even the audience gets to help out with fart sounds. Good thing I had a raisin, apple and peanut butter sandwich for lunch.
So what's the big deal? While this piece is a stock element of drama school texts, apparently no one has bothered to perform it in decades. Perhaps it's the intimidating cast, the dated absurdity, or the need for a large number of horses on stage. What ever the reason, it's a happy moment that our local avante garde troupe tackled this paleoabsurdist icon, and executed it with the panache of Pee Wee's playhouse. Action flies along with the bare minimum dialog needed to nail the action, and convenient signs hang around the necks of actors so you never wonder who the tall guy in the doublet really is. Childlike in simplicity and directness, Ubu combines nearly every element of the standard dramatic form - 5 acts, clear protagonist /antagonist relations, rising action in 2 waves, and a host of other nitty things only a specialist could love. It also has Bobby Bell saying "poop" loudly and clearly, applying his profound knowledge of Brecht to a clearly defined and crucial acting task.
Perhaps more decades will pass before someone tackles Ubu again. Unlike Godot, the other Absurdist classic no one really has the bladder power to sit thought, this king Ubu zips along with plenty of actions, laughs, and a wonderful sense of flatulence. Conceptually, it props up Dada, the Marx Brothers, and Mad TV; and as Pétomane would have recommended: "It's a gas!"
The rarely produced play is being given a wildly comic and brazenly theatrical revival, a century after its premiere, by John DiDonna, Seth Kubersky and their Empty Spaces Theatre Company. Knowing that audiences will no longer be shocked by the work's crass uncouthness and tasteless impropriety, director DiDonna wisely invites the audience into Jarry's infantile universe as co-conspirators, even having his troupe pass out rubber fart sound–making toys, to help unlock the boisterous buffoonery that will be the evening's main course. One would be wise not to miss this “riotous” entertainment. Even Jarry might have exclaimed, “Holy merde! C'est la droll shit.” - Al Krulick, The Orlando Weekly
“..it's a happy moment that our local avante garde troupe tackled this paleoabsurdist icon, and executed it with the panache of Pee Wee's playhouse.” – Carl Gauze, The Orlando Weekly