Ubu rex alfred jarry biography
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Alfred Jarry | |
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Alfred Jarry, portrait by Felix Vallotton, 1901. | |
Born | September 8, 1873 Laval, Mayenne, France |
Died | 1 November 1907 (aged 34) Paris, France |
Occupation | Dramatist |
Nationality | French |
Influenced | Eugene Ionesco, Fernando Arrabal, Guillaume Apollinaire, André Salmon, Max Jacob, Pablo Picasso |
Alfred Jarry (September 8, 1873 – November 1, 1907) was a Frenchdramatist, novelist, and humorist.
Best known for his play Ubu Roi (1896), which is often cited as a forerunner to the surrealist theater of the 1920s and 1930s, Jarry wrote in a variety of genres and styles. He wrote plays, novels, poetry, essays, and speculative journalism. His texts present some pioneering work in the field of absurdist literature. Though the term absurd is applied to a wide range of texts, some characteristics coincide in many of them: Broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism. Absurdist literature arose in response to some of the more ridiculous aspects of modern, rationalist, bureaucratic life
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Ubu Roi
1896 play by Alfred Jarry
For the mascot dog, see Ubu Productions.
Ubu Roi | |
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Programme from the première | |
Written by | Alfred Jarry |
Date premiered | December 10, 1896 (1896-12-10) |
Place premiered | Paris |
Original language | French |
Series | Ubu Cocu Ubu Enchaîné |
Ubu Roi (French:[ybyʁwa]; "Ubu the King" or "King Ubu") is a play by French writer Alfred Jarry, then 23 years old. It was first performed in Paris in 1896, by Aurélien Lugné-Poe's Théâtre de l'Œuvre at the Nouveau-Théâtre (today, the Théâtre de Paris). The production's single public performance baffled and offended audiences with its unruliness and obscenity. Considered to be a wild, bizarre and comic play, significant for the way it overturns cultural rules, norms and conventions, it is seen by 20th- and 21st-century scholars to have opened the door for what became known as modernism in the 20th century, and as a precursor to Dadaism, Surrealism and the Theatre of the Absurd.
Overview
[edit]Ubu Roi was first performed in Paris on December 10, 1896, by Aurélien Lugné-Poe's Théâtre de l'Œuvre at Nouveau-Théâtre (today, the Théâtre de Paris), 15, rue Blanche, in the 9th arrondissement. The play – scheduled for an invited "industry" run-through followed