Lincoln Center Festival lead support is provided by American Express July 22-26 Gerald W. Lynch Theater Cheek by Jowl Ubu Roi By Alfred Jarry Director Declan Donnellan Designer Nick Ormerod Associate Director Michelangelo Marchese Associate and Movement Director Jane Gibson Lighting Designer Pascal Noël Composer Davy Sladek , with additional music by Paddy Cunneen Video Designers Benoit Simon , Quentin Vigier CAST Père Ubu Christophe Grégoire Mère Ubu Camille Cayol Bordure Xavier Bolffier King Wenceslas Vincent de Boüard Queen Rosemonde Cécile Leterme Bougrelas Sylvain Levitte Approximate performance time: 1 hour 50 minutes, with no intermission Major support for Lincoln Center Festival 2015 is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This performance is made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for Lincoln Center. Lincoln Center Festival 2015 is made possible in part with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Lincoln Center Festival 2015 presentation of Ubu Roi is made possible in part by generous support from The Grand Marnier Foundation and Sharp Fund PLD at The New York Community Trust. Ubu Roi is produced by Cheek by Jowl in a co-production with Les Gémeaux–Scène National de Sceaux, Paris; The Barbican, London; and La Comédie de Béthume–Centre Dramatique National du Nord-Pas-de-Calais. LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2015 UBU ROI Synopsis The play begins with Mère Ubu urging her husband Père Ubu, Captain of the Dragoons and confidential adviser to King Wenceslas, to wipe out the King and his family and install himself on the throne. Père Ubu readily agrees and enlists Captain Bordure, whom he promises to make Duke of Lithuania, to help execute his plot. The King announces his plans to make Ubu Count of Sandomir in a parade the next day. Ubu nonetheless continues with his scheme, gathering a group of supporters to commit the murder and instructing them to ensure the rest of the royal family, particularly the King’s young son, Bougrelas, are also killed. Meanwhile, Bougrelas and his mother Queen Rosemonde voice their concerns about Père Ubu and his loyalty to the King. Stubborn in his defence of Ubu, the King forbids his son to attend the parade and vows to go unarmed. At the parade, the murder is carried out as planned and Ubu seizes the crown. Ubu’s men charge into the palace in search of Bougrelas and Queen Rosemonde. Bougrelas man - ages to fend off their attackers and escapes with his mother, who quickly sickens and dies. Bougrelas is left alone to fight Ubu and avenge his father’s death. Ubu’s extravagance with his newly acquired wealth begins to concern his wife. She warns him that he must be careful with his finances, fulfill his promises to Bordure, and try to win over Bougrelas if he is to remain in power, but Père Ubu hastily dismisses her suggestions. Ubu rounds up the noblemen, magistrates, and financiers and has them killed one by one, having resolved they will stand in the way of his plans to acquire vast sums of money through various questionable reforms. Ubu imprisons Bordure when he discovers that his former ally has begun to conspire against him, but Bordure manages to escape and flees to Moscow to join Emperor Alexis in the fight against Ubu. Bordure sends a letter notify - ing him of their plans to attack, and a terrified Ubu prepares for battle. Marching in the Ukraine, Ubu and his men come across Alexander Rensky, who announces that the Poles have revolted and that little hope is left. The Russians advance and begin to attack. Without a thought for his troops, Ubu runs from the scene as soon as possible, seeking refuge in a cave in Lithuania. Mère Ubu happens to stumble upon the same cave, having fled Poland with Bougrelas and his soldiers in pursuit. The pair are arguing ferociously, when Bougrelas and his men storm the cave, ready for a final show - down. Luckily for Ubu, his own supporters are close behind, and provide a quick escape for Mère and Père Ubu. With the battle lost, Ubu announces he is glad to be rid of the crown and he, his wife, and supporters set their sights on new horizons. LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2015 UBU ROI About Ubu Roi “There are often duels after these perfor - mances,” and he explains to me what is As a species, we prefer to talk of the inno - happening on the stage. The players are cence of our childhoods than to remember supposed to be dolls, toys, marionettes, our potential cruelty. The selfishness and and now they are all hopping like wooden easy brutality of this period we regard as frogs, and I can see for myself that the infantile, as easily consigned to the past chief personage, who is some kind of King, once we are older, once we have become carries for a scepter a brush of the kind “civilized.” Some commentators have even that we use to clean a toilet. Feeling bound attributed our lack of early memories as a to support the most spirited party, we have defense against the memory of our own shouted for the play, but that night at the overwhelming feelings—feelings so nega - Hotel Corneille I am very sad…I say: “After tive that we are ashamed to own them. Stéphané Mallarmé, after Paul Verlaine, after Gustave Moreau, after Puvis de What do we do with our feelings that are Chavannes, after our own verse, after all not civilized? Civilization often demands our subtle color and nervous rhythm, after that we ignore or deny them. We all want the faint mixed tints of Conder, what more to be civilized—but there is a price to be is possible? After us the Savage God.” paid for civilization. And the price, on occa - sion, is madness. Excerpted from Autobiographies by W.B. Yeats (1865-1939), London: Macmillan, 1955. Mère and Père Ubu—excessive, antisocial, thunderously dynamic with no other goal ‘Merdre!’ beyond the acquisition of power itself, After creator Alfred Jarry finished his intro - frighten as much they amuse us. Do they ductory speech at the first performance of hark back to the selfishness and violence Ubu Roi , which he delivered in front of the of our own childhoods? The play enacts, footlights, the next word the audience above all, a vicious, menacing infantilism— heard, as Firmin Gémier (the actor playing as violent as it is childlike. Ubu articulates Père Ubu) took center stage was the the potential violence that lies within us all. eagerly awaited “ merdre! ” Nonetheless, it was a fiction invented by Rachilde (novelist Whether the work of a genius or a school - and wife of Alfred Valette, editor of the boy scribble, this product of a fin-de-siècle Mercure de France, both of whom were hungry for new forms, displays an lifelong friends of Jarry’s) that “the Word” unprecedented simplicity, reconnecting us sparked off a riot among the audience. Ubu with perhaps our most basic instincts. Roi had been in print for six months and the audience knew what to expect. According to the journalist Georges After Us: The Savage God Rémond, Jarry’s plan had been to provoke The Irish poet W.B. Yeats attended the first a more dramatic theatrical scandal than performance of Ubu Roi on December 8, those of Phèdre and Hernani . His personal 1896. Following is an extract from his diaries. claque was made up, not of his literary friends, but of drinking companions from The audience shakes their fists at one his local restaurant, Chez Ernest. They had another, and the Rhymer whispers to me, been briefed to start a disturbance, what - LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL 2015 UBU ROI ever happened. On the one hand they About Alfred Jarry were to counter applause with furious Alfred Jarry was born in 1873 in Laval, shouts, but in the case of boos and whis - Mayenne, France. He was a brilliant and tles, to utter ecstatic cries of delight. original young man: independent, curious, According to Rémond, Jarry did not intend passionate, fierce, sarcastic, and shy. In the play to reach its conclusion. The audi - 1883 he entered the Lycée at Rennes ence itself was to provide the theatrical where he proved to be an exceptional stu - event. This is borne out by the fact that he dent; but, showing a trait he would have did not preserve any of the favorable for the rest of his life, would take orders reviews of Ubu Roi , but carefully compiled from no one. He only took to his books a scrap book of adverse criticisms. Jarry’s when he felt like it and, with his intelli - disdain for flattery and praise may have gence and wit, could sabotage a class and been the reason why he had to be destroy the confidence of any person of prompted to write to thank the eminent authority he felt inadequate. journalist, Catulle Mendès, for his wise analysis of Jarry’s achievement in creating A physics teacher, Félix-Frédéric Hébert, the Ubu phenomenon: “A new type has also known to students as “Père Ebé,” been put before us, created by the extrav - among other names, possessed of a large agant and brutal imagination of a man who stomach, short legs, and an air of buffoon - is a sort of child. Père Ubu exists…You will ish pomposity, had been the butt of school - not be able to get rid of him; he will haunt boy jokes for years before Jarry’s arrival at you and perpetually force you to remember Rennes.