Ubu Roi - Development

Development

"The beginnings of the original Ubu," wrote Taylor, "have attained the status of legend within French theatre culture." It was as a student in 1888, at the age of fifteen, that Jarry perused Les Polonais, a brief teacher-ridiculing farce by the brothers Henri (of whom he was a good friend) and Charles Morin. This, one of many plays created around the character of Père Ubu (or Hébé, as he was known at the time), is long lost, so the true and complete authorship of Ubu Roi can never be known. It is clear, however, that Jarry considerably revised and expanded the play, endowed it with the marionette concept and gave its protagonist the handle under which he became famous.

While his schoolmates lost interest in the Ubu legends when they left school, Jarry continued adding to and reworking the material for the rest of his short life. His plays were widely and wildly hated for their scant respect to royalty, religion and society, their vulgarity and scatology, their brutality and low comedy, and their perceived utter lack of literary finish.