RAÚL HERNÁNDEZ GARRIDO Gestas de Papá Ubú
Compañía Ferroviaria de Artes Escénicas and Teatres de la Generalitat Valenciana
Length: 1h 15’
The play was represented from the 9th
of November until the 27th of 2005 in L’Altre Espai theatre of
Valencia.
Papa Ubú: (Manuel Hernández) He is the main character of the
play. He is a man that moves by his own interests and wants to get the control
of the world. All he wants is the throne
so he is capable to steal, kill, torture, blackmail, enslave, betray and all
this kind of things only to reach his objective.
He speaks in a peculiar way. He changes the
order of the words or adds some letters. He uses for example “Mierdra”. He also uses some special variations of
words that make his speech funnier and attractive. He appears during the play dressed in a coat with buckles and
without any clothes on his top. He is probably in his thirties or fourties, he
is bald and a little bit crazy.
Mamá Ubú:
(Gema Segura) She is the Ubú's wife. She shows herself as an
adulteress woman with an “enemy” of Ubú, Memnón, since he and Mamá Ubú want to
get rid of Ubú. She is probably younger than Ubú but she is not well conserved.
She wears a red dress with some strange form.
When Ubú arrives to the throne she and her lover try to guide Ubú in
their direction to get them the throne. Ubú has discovered the lover so Mamá
Ubú and Memnón are disguised. Mamá Ubú
gets pregnant but the boy is killed by Ubú and she dies at the childbirth.
Memnón: (Mario Esteban) He is Mamá Ubú's lover. He tries to be a singer but he is quite bad
singing. He is dressed and characterised to remind the public David Bustamante.
This character gives lots of fun to the play because he is always thinking of
singing and sometimes Mamá Ubú needs to lie him saying he will sing in public.
When Ubú gets to the throne, Memnón is
disguised of “Town” to avoid being discovered by Ubú. At the end, he is
discovered by Ubú because he is careless and gets distracted. Ubú ends up
killing him. He is younger than Mamá
Ubú and he is always dressed in black trousers and shirts. He has long hair and
he has an athletic body.
Monomonarca: (Mario Esteban) He is an English Ubú's friend. After some situations, Ubú kills
him. He wants the throne only to him but after some time they are again
together. Monomonarca has with himselve a dancer that will use to negociate
with Ubú. He is dressed in “safari” clothes, with a hat and carrying an arm. He
talks about killing. He also has with himself the soldier “Soldado”. He acts
sometimes as a translator and helps and defends Monomonarca.
Palotines:
( Emma López / Eloísa Azorín) They are rappers that work with Ubú when he
commits his non “pollitically correct” acts.
Soldado:
(Emma López / Eloísa Azorín) He is the soldier of Monomonarch. When he is killed by Ubú, the soldier has to work
for him. He shows bad humour and lots
of discipline. He has been trained to work really hard but he is conscious that
he is not going to work for Ubú with extra hours and also that when his working
day ends he does not have to obbey Ubú’s orders. He is dressed in military
clothes and with a little hat. He is tall and serious and sometimes helps
Monomonarca to be expressed.
Conciencia:
(Cristian Weidmann) He is a baby that is wearing a nappy. This way of showing us the
conscience can be related with the way Ubú thinks. This is a way of telling the
public that Ubú’s brain is the one of a little baby. He also has the
characteristics of a baby : irresponsability, non thinking before doing
something, common sense... The conscience has a special way of speak. It is
also really funny although sometimes is difficult to understand because it also
uses some different words and a special “singing” tone.
SPACE: Until the play is started you see
the scenery totally empty. Curtains are open but there is nothing on stage.
Then when the play starts, characters appear but there is a play without lots
of decorative items in order to show us the spaces.
The
play is not represented in the same space all time. There are scenes where Papá
and Mamá Ubú live, where the throne is placed, in the territory of
Monomonarca... There is needed a lot of
imagination to know exactly where they are. If characters don’t
mentions, probably every one of the public would say a different place or would
describe it under their point of view.
LIGHTING: There was a big spotlight that
pointed to the center of the scenery. There was no special lighting concretely
to any character. The intensity of lighting was depending on the place of the
scenery they were situated.
CLOTHES:
Clothes in this play are not really complicated. They use simple
clothes, like Papá and Mamá Ubú that are wearing a coat and a dress that seems
broken respectively… Memnón also uses simple clothes, he is wearing black
trousers and black shirt. Monomonarch
is wearing clothes of military or important charge clothes. He wears some green
trousers, black boots, a shirt and a hat. Palotines wear loose clothes like
rappers do. Soldier wears a military uniform with boots. Finally Conscience uses only a nappy and
some glasses when he is going to swim.
Mamá Ubú and Memnón also use old clothes when
they are acting as the town. When Ubú
has the throne he changes his coat for a
velvet red cloak.
ATREZZO: Atrezzo in this play is not really
complicated and numerous. We can see arms, cloth, and a wooden circular
construction which use change in every act. It is used as a place full of water, as a bed, a table, as the room of Ubú when he is
eating, and also as the place when Mamá Ubú is giving birth to her child and
the place where Ubú condemnates all “bad people”. This is probably the most
used piece of the atrezzo during all the play although there is also a throne,
clothes...
PERSONAL OPINION: From my point of view this is a
really good adaptation of the text. I have not read or seen the original from
Alfred Jarry but I think this is an actual play which contains lots of humour
touches and also actual critics to society and important people. We can see for
example a critic to Bush, Bustamante... and this as well as giving fun to the
play and attract the attention makes the play not being superficial and bring
the play nearer to the public.
Moreover the atmosphere of the theatre was
really good. As on the other plays, the majority of public were young people,
and the stalls were quite empty so it was like a private representation. We
could enjoy of a complete silence play (refering to the public) and from my
point of view a really sincere ovation from all the public was given to the
actors.