An officer of King Wenceslas and decorated with the Order of the Red Eagle, Ubu enjoys an enviable position at the Polish court. However, his wife, Mother Ubu, has very different ambitions for him. She convinces him to dethrone Wenceslas, plunging him into a series of adventures. Ubu will become by turns king, warrior, and fugitive before becoming "Master of Finances" in his native France... Alfred Jarry (1873-1907) wrote this parodic and burlesque work at the age of fifteen, which caused a sensation upon its premiere in 1896. Little did he know that he would leave a lasting mark on 20th-century theatre, from Roger Vitrac to Boris Vian and Eugène Ionesco. This work displays Shakespearean and Rabelaisian traits in its enormous and vivid imagination, its unusual verbal inventions, and its unusual rhythm. Father Ubu, sometimes cruel, sometimes cowardly, vain yet caring, recalls Macbeth and Falstaff: he is more than a character, he is a myth. He embodies a humanity both terrifying and pitiful—comic in its ugliness, colossal in its stupidity and cowardice.
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