Ubu Roi, Barbican Theatre, Cheek by Jowl

Alfred Jarry’s gruesome, surreal, and seemingly irreverent drama sparked riots when it premiered in Paris 1896. Ahead of its time, and shockingly inventive, the play preceded the formal experimentation that would define the modernist era. Jarry’s adolescent anger with the bourgeoisie is beautifully reimagined in Cheek-by-Jowl’s revival of Ubu Roi. In the hands of Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod, you are unlikely to see a sillier or more thought-provoking production this year.

Jarry’s play is a wildly absurd romp through corruption, war, and mass slaughter. Ubu and his wife organize a coup to kill the king of Poland. After successfully taking the crown, he endeavors to make himself filthily rich. On his way to total power, we watch him slaughter the nobles, the magistrates, and the financers with impunity. A revolt led by the crown prince Bougrelas sparks war with Russia and the stretching of Ubu’s power.

 

The company’s greatest coup is to channel the adolescent anger into an onstage character. The theatre is dressed up as an ornate Parisian apartment. French radio nonchalantly plays in the background. This calm and neutral scene isn’t what one would normally associate with Jarry’s sinister universe. At the start of the play a young man is curled up clutching a video camera. His disgust at his parent’s lifestyle becomes the production’s framing device. Through sheer mental energy his parents and their guests are transformed into the play’s various characters. Their apartment, and the furniture found inside, becomes the theatrical space. When the camera-wielding teenager becomes the wronged Bougrelas, and starts attempting to murder his father, everything becomes incredibly Oedipal.

  

The stop-start shifts between dinner party and wild killing are hilarious, and brutally effective at conveying Jarry’s initial anger. The framing device is a stroke of genius that beautifully illuminates the play. This is not a perfect production. The concept largely runs out of energy towards the end, and the opening tableau with the roaming video camera is overlong. Nonetheless, this is a thrillingly entertaining and silly evening. See it while you can; there is unlikely to be a better version of Jarry’s troubled play.