David Thomas and Sarah-Jane Morris as Père and Mère Ubu. (photo credit: Angel)
Pere Ubu and the Brothers Quay present
Bring Me The Head Of Ubu Roi
Reviews • Press Release for QEH Premiere • Background Press Fodder • Photos
In two specially created performances for Southbank Centre's ETHER 08 festival, expressionist avant-garage rock band Pere Ubu premiered Bring Me The Head of Ubu Roi, an adaptation of Ubu Roi (King Ubu), Alfred Jarry's landmark 1896 play that inspired the band's name and is widely seen as the precursor to the Absurdist, Dada and Surrealist art movements.
At the heart of Jarry's original production was the use of various performance media, and Pere Ubu's show reflects this with a unique visual staging by the enigmatic Brothers Quay, accomplised through intriguing stop-motion animation projections. Singer David Thomas will feature as Père Ubu, partnering Sarah-Jane Morris (ex-Communards) in the role of Mère Ubu, and the production includes an original music score by the band Pere Ubu and 10 new songs. Gagarin, aka London-based former Ludus, Nico and John Cale drummer Graham Dowdall, will contribute an electronic soundtrack.
With this part music, part spoken word, part animated production on the stage of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, David Thomas of Pere Ubu realises an ambition he has had since being turned on to Alfred Jarry as a 16-year-old high school student in Cleveland, Ohio. David Thomas said: "Jarry's ideas resonated with feelings I had about the use of abstract, concrete and synthesized sound in the narrative architecture of rock music, all tools to engage the imagination of the listener when detailing the picture told by the music and lyrics."
Ubu Roi is a play for the mind and imagination. It is a drama of ideas and grotesqueries, and a fusion of several disparate and incongruous elements. It shocked early audiences with its blend of grotesque absurdity, wild humour and coarse language. At the premiere in 1896, the very first word of Ubu Roi ("merdre," translated as "shitter") provoked a riot amongst the audience and fist fights broke out in the orchestra.
Alfred Jarry's plays in general were widely and wildly hated for their vulgarity, brutality, low comedy and complete lack of literary finish, and his work revealed a lack of respect for royalty, religion and society that prompted some to see his output as the theatrical equivalent of an anarchist bomb attack and an act of political subversion.