Ubu Roi: The Power of Satire
First-Edition-Cover-Ubu-Roi
Satire has been with us since Ancient Greece. But there are times when its potency as a political tool for exposing society’s ills is more than usually necessary.
Calling out the world’s absurdities and laughing at the venality and hypocrisy of politicians and other powerful people is the perfect way of taking them down a peg or two.
And, as playwright Dario Fo said, “Comedy makes the subversion of the existing state of affairs possible”.
The frequent revivals of Alfred Jarry’s classic satire Ubu Roi (Ubu the King) bring this home. It’s a politically resonant exercise in absurdist theatre that feels as fresh today as when it was first staged in 1896.
The abuse of political power
Ubu Roi is both a commentary on and a revolt against the bourgeois morality, greed and corruption that Jarry witnessed in fin de siecle France. But its themes are universal.
The play revolves around Père Ubu (Pa Ubu), an officer to Wencelas, King of Poland. A fat, grotesque and narcissistic character, Père Ubu is persuaded by his wife, Mère Ubu, to kill the king and his sons at a feast held, ironically, for Ubu’s promotion. After seizing the throne, he proceeds to raise taxes and destroy the social fabric of the kingdom. And is concerned with little else than his personal gratification.
Eventually, the Tsar of Russia is persuaded to declare war on Père Ubu and defeats him in battle with the help of Bougrelas, the surviving son of the King. Finally, Père Ubu, revealed as a coward, escapes to France with his wife.
Il faut épater le bourgeois
When actor Firmin Gernier stepped forward on the first night and spoke his opening line as Pere Ubu, "Merdre!" (often translated as “Pschitt!”), the audience erupted and a riot ensued (possibly abetted by Jarry and his friends). The play provoked a critical storm. The blasphemous language and scatological references scandalised the Parisian intelligentsia. And performances were halted after the second night.
The play was a head-on assault on dramatic naturalism. And Jarry was possibly the first dramatist to place direct confrontation with his audience at the core of his work. This clearly had a political element. “Take away the right to say ‘fuck’,” as comedian Lenny Bruce famously said, “and you take away the right to say ‘fuck the government’”.
Unsurprisingly, Ubu Roi is recognized as the precursor to the Theatre of the Absurd, inspiring Dadaists and Surrealists alike.
André Breton described Ubu Roi as, “The great prophetic avenging play of modern times”. The play’s casual lack of morality reflects perfectly the power of this type of drama to cut through the polite facade maintained by more conventional theatre.
Jarry’s Ubu, a cruel, gluttonous figure, was a metaphor for the self-serving, hypocritical politicians of the age, driven by vanity and serving a class interested only in protecting and extending their privileges. He represented untrammelled appetite and arbitrary power.
Laughter does not please the mighty
The play will remain relevant as long as our politics remain dominated by a venal, corrupt bourgeoisie of which Père and Mère Ubu are archetypes.
Unencumbered by morality or the traditional constraints that sometimes temper the exercise of political power, Père Ubu represents a primal and seemingly unstoppable force, who will trample on anyone who gets in his way in his lust for power.
Interestingly, it’s the tension between the tasteless exercise of power on display and the mockery central to the dramaturgy which gives the play its force. Audiences are simultaneously appalled and fascinated by what they’re watching. Jarry wrote that “laughter is born out of the discovery of the contradictory”. By forcing his audience to confront difficult truths about the nature of society, he was encouraging people to question their view of reality.
People sometimes argue that satire has lost its capacity to shock. Or that its ability to change the world is exaggerated. But it continues to offer an engaging and persuasive mechanism for tackling social injustice and advocating progressive change that can complement more orthodox messages.
In the face of an increasingly mendacious and autocratic politics, as the rich and powerful become even more rich and powerful, satire remains a valuable tool to challenge the profound irrationality and immorality of our current political system.
Jarry died young. A victim of tuberculosis and alcoholism. But, as he said, “One can show one's contempt for the cruelty and stupidity of the world by making of one's life a poem of incoherence and absurdity.”
Père Ubu’s eventual defeat and flight show us that history is never over. The powerful get their comeuppance.
Astute readers will, no doubt, detect parallels between the objects of Jarry’s satire and the contemporary reality of politics in Britain, the United States and elsewhere.