UBU ROI
Do not say: “When I was young I used to play”–Play! and be young –a motto, printed on the cover of Let’s Sing Pessach Songs, by Adi Sulkin.
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And he would’ve, too–though, at four and a half, he’s just a little young for some parts. People may talk about Ubu Roi’s influence on the 20th-century avant-garde; people may go on about how Ubu Roi anticipated Dada, surrealism, and the theater of the absurd. But it’s good to remember that–as a program note for the new Chicago Actors Ensemble production says–“This play was written by a 15 year old boy.” An awfully smart 15-year-old boy, to be sure–but a 15-year-old boy nonetheless, harboring all the familiar 15-year-old boy’s obsessions. Getting off on caca jokes and dirty words, on Punch and Judy violence and nasty caricatures of dumb adults.
And just the kind of vulgar cartoon a bright, slightly backward 15-year-old boy might be expected to draw. There’s nothing all that brilliant about the text of Ubu Roi, and little Alfred Jarry was no genius for writing it. (He wasn’t the sole author, anyway, but only one of several kids who collaborated in putting together a satirical puppet show attacking a particularly loathsome teacher.)
Though winningly game, Timm Reinhard’s Dr. Faustoroll can’t hold a green candle to Mark Nelson’s lyrically repulsive Pere Ubu. Nelson plays Ubu as nothing more than a regular guy with a bizarre hairstyle and the morals of a slug. A cross between Ralph Kramden and Benito Mussolini. He’s so much fun to watch that there’s a palpable letdown when he’s offstage.
But their discomfort also works to their advantage, giving them a creative distance from the three fairy tales that make up their program, and allowing them a sense of irony you don’t usually find in kids’ shows–which leads, paradoxically, to a freer sense of play than you usually find in kids’ shows. The narrator says a character built a fire, and a cardboard fire comes sailing out of the wings. A woman goes to pour cold water on her husband, and out of the bucket falls a mix of clear plastic six-pack holders and green paper fish. Flags depicting cats and dogs manage at once to promote and deflect a sense of menace, while the theoretically ridiculous notion of using a turtle as a hat on an actress’s head turns out in fact to be both efficient and rather exquisite.
