About The Book

Alfred Jarry is regarded as one of the founders of modern avant-garde theatre – “Dada, Surrealism, Pataphysics, Theatre of Cruelty, the Absurd–all owe a debt to Jarry.” (Encore) This volume contains his three classic Ubu texts: Ubu Roi, Ubu Cocu and Ubu Encha”n”. Through the lucid translations of Connolly and Taylor, the reader comes to realize that the violent and loathsome Ubu is Jarry’s dark metaphor for man in the modern age. As Ubu himself said, “We shall not have succeeded in demolishing everything unless we demolish the ruins as well.”

Praise

“A vicious, humorous attack on the barbarism of civilization. A mock Macbeth.” –Mel Gussow

“Full of grotesque humor, scatological allusions and mocking caricature, depicting the stupidity and rapaciousness of men and monarchs.” –The New York Times

“Jarry’s infant-cartoon vision of modern politics has turned out to be prophetic too. These days you can find Ubu at the head of any government, and the play’s attenuated string of executions and lootings calls up uncomfortably familiar images of everyone from Stalin to Idi Amin.” –The Village Voice

“One of the epock-making scandals of Western theater. . . . Ubu’s appetite is for power. He represents the apocalyptic slob, the roaring, grasping ‘man of the people” who chomps and slurps his way to the top.” –Newsweek

“The Ubu explosion sent shrapnel flying into the next century. Dada, Surrealism, Pataphysics, Theatre of Cruelty, the Absurd–all owe a debt to Jarry.” –Encore