FROM IRREVERENT TO REVERED: HOW ALFRED JARRY’S UBU ROI AND THE “U-EFFECT” CHANGED THEATRE HISTORY Lance Mekeel A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2013 Committee: Jonathan Chambers, Ph.D., Advisor Kara Joyner, Ph.D. Graduate Faculty Representative Lesa Lockford, Ph.D. Scott Magelssen, Ph.D. © 2013 Lance Mekeel All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Jonathan Chambers, Advisor For decades, theatre history textbooks and other influential studies on theatre history have positioned Ubu Roi, Alfred Jarry’s 1896 avant-garde “classic,” as the beginning or originator of the historical avant-garde and precursor to the playwrights considered as part of Martin Esslin’s “Theatre of the Absurd.” Much of this reputation is built on inaccurate accounts of the premiere production, put down by those involved or in attendance, who had particular aims in reporting the event in the ways they did. Those accounts would end up being put to use as the base on which various scholars would establish the premiere of Ubu Roi as the ignition of the historical avant-garde. This dissertation is a poststructuralist historiographical study in which I analyze the various statements made, first by participants and witnesses to the premiere production, and then by scholars and critics who take those accounts as factual, that place Ubu Roi on a path to legitimization and inclusion in the Western canon. In my research, I examine initial accounts of the premiere production, early post mortem accounts of Jarry’s life, the proliferation of the character Ubu in early twentieth century French society, French and English critical and biographical studies of Jarry and Ubu Roi, anthologies and edited collections of Ubu Roi, and reviews and other related materials of several key French revivals and over fifteen English- language revivals of the play. I mark the emergence of three specific strategies that grew out of tactics Jarry employed at the premiere. I demonstrate how the conflation of Jarry with his character Ubu, made possible by his extraordinary performance of self at the premiere, the notion of the production’s innate iv ability to produce scandal, and the idea of Jarry’s implementation of a “revolutionary” dramaturgy, are all used to make Ubu Roi the example par excellence of avant-garde drama. I unite these three strategies under the title “U-Effect” to describe the subject position assumed by those scholars and critics that privilege Ubu Roi as the epitome of the theatrical avant-garde. With this as my guiding mode of critique, I examine such issues as the practice of writing Jarry’s biography, how the inclusion of Ubu Roi in anthologies of drama and histories of the avant-garde has affected the construction of theatre history, and how productions of the play reinforce, maintain, or subvert the play’s power in scholarly and cultural discourse. Encouragingly, some recent studies have challenged Ubu Roi’s seat at the head of the avant-garde, and in this study I underline how scholars have posed those challenges. It is important to expose the process through which Ubu Roi has attained its chief position in the avant-garde in order to be able to see more clearly whether there are other narratives that may provide students of theatre history—if not a complete image or story of the avant-garde—at least a more nuanced, and varied one. v For Sarah, always. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible if not for the assistance, guidance, and support of so many people. I have several teachers and mentors to thank for their direct impact in the early stages of my approach to Ubu Roi. Doug Powers, Shawn Kairschner, and Father David Cregan all allowed me to explore various aspects of the text in my undergraduate and masters studies. Those opportunities only served to strengthen my desire to continue to think and write about the play. I have to thank the staffs of two libraries, which were crucial in assisting my research. Thank you to the staff of the New York Public Library Performing Arts Branch, which I visited several times at various stages of this project. I am also thankful for the support of BGSU Jerome Library’s Interlibrary Loan staff and research librarian Stefanie Hunker, who facilitated the pursuit of many obscure French articles/books and newspaper articles from around the world. The BGSU community has been a wonderful environment in which to complete my research. Thanks to Robert Berg, of the department of Romance and Classical Studies, for helping me obtain the French reading proficiency necessary for taking on this project. I must thank the Department of Theatre and Film Graduate Committee for honoring me with the 2012- 2013 Dissertation Fellowship—if I did not have this fellowship, I may still be writing my prospectus. Our program’s graduate students are a very supportive group, and I am grateful for their friendship and encouragement. My cohort, Sarah Katka, Patrick Konesko, and JP Staszel, deserves special thanks for obliging my desire to share my interests with them, for tremendous assistance with my writing, and for camaraderie throughout our coursework. I am enormously in debt to my doctoral committee for immeasurable support and guidance. To Kara Joyner, my Graduate Faculty Representative, thank you for your invaluable vii questions and genuine support in our meetings. Many thanks to Lesa Lockford, for your significant assistance with my writing, both in doctoral courses and in the exams and dissertation process. This project would look a lot different (and I think a lot less rigorous) without the input of Scott Magelssen, who equipped me with the tools to look at the play in this manner. Finally, I owe so much to my advisor, Jonathan Chambers, for so many things over the past four years. Here I will say thank you, Jonathan, for your patience, encouragement, and for your gentle guidance throughout this process in helping to hone my writing and make this project viable. Without friends and family, I could not have made it this far. Thank you to Stephen Harrick and Matt Saltzberg, for being there to talk (and text) through writing issues, and for moral support. Thank you also to Jeff LaRocque, for much needed comic relief and friendship. My family has been my biggest set of supporters. My dad, my brother Wes, and my brother-in- law Caleb have all supported me the whole way through this process, and I am grateful for it. I owe a huge thanks to those family members (even if they are not actual family, I certainly consider them family) who sent me “care packages” throughout the writing process: my mom, my second parents Bob and Jill, Lindsay and Todd, Katie and Dave, Kelly and Jim, and Matt. Your outpouring of love and support—especially in the form of peach rings—kept me going as I was struggling through the writing process. The care package system was organized by my biggest supporter, motivator, and inspiration: my wife, Sarah. This was just one of so many ways she made my process easier and more pleasant. I owe much of my success to her; without her, I would not have been able to accomplish many of the things I am proud of as an adult. Finally, two notes on the text. Where there is a reliable translation of a scholarly work or text of Jarry’s in English, I have used it; anywhere else, the translations are my own, unless otherwise noted. I also take full claim to any errors or faults in the study. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………………..........................1 CHAPTER 1: “La Bombe Comique” ............................................................................................21 Section A: Context, Publication, Premiere Performance, and Confusion of Event .........22 Section B: The Making of Jarry’s (After)Life and Ubu’s Rise .......................................38 Section C: Dada, Surrealism, Artaud and Ubu .................................................................48 Section D: The Second Ubu Controversy and Lugné-Poe’s 1922 Revival ......................58 Section E: First Biographies, Full-Length Analyses of Jarry and his Works, and the Establishment of Ubu Roi’s Legitimacy in France ...............................................63 Section F: College of Pataphysics and Other French Scholarship-late 1940s-1950s, and Jean Vilar’s Ubu Roi .............................................................................................71 Section G: Ubu Goes English-Initial Translations of Ubu and English-Language Scholarship on Jarry and Ubu ...............................................................................80 CHAPTER 2: Ubu Ascends to His Throne ...................................................................................91 Section A: Using Ubu Roi to Frame the Contemporary Avant-Garde in the 1960s .........95 Section B: French Scholarship and Collections in the 1960s to mid-1970s ...................107 Section C: English-language Translations, Collections, and Scholarship on Jarry and Ubu-1960s-1970s ...............................................................................................114 Section D: Academe Overrun by Jarry: French and English Scholarship in the 1980s .134 Section E: Contemporary French and English Jarry Scholarship-1990-Present ............146 Section F: Contemporary Treatments of the Avant-Garde .............................................158 CHAPTER 3: Ubu Takes the Stage ............................................................................................169