“GESTAS DE PAPÁ UBÚ”
Raul
Hernandez Garrido, “Gestas de
Papá Ubú”, Compañía Ferroviaria de Artes Escénicas, manager by Paco Maciá (
with the colaboration of Isabel Úbeda)
Cast:
-Manuel Hernández: Papá Ubú
-Gema Segura: Mamá Ubú
-Mario Esteban: Memnón
Monomonarca
Mandamás
Pueblo
-Emma López/ Eloísa Azorín: Palotín
Pueblo
Soldado
Alto cargo compartido
Juez
Nobles
-Cristian Weidmann: Palotín
Conciencia
Pueblo
-Leticia Ñeco/ Ana Belén Lifante:
Bailarina Tatana
Arqueopterix
24 of November in 2005, L’altre Espai
(C/ Platero Suárez, 11)
The main character, Papá Ubú is corrupt, egoist, traitor, murder,
rubber, tyrant, ignoble.
The rest of the characters, Mamá Ubú, the town, the soldier,
Monomonarca, etc, move around Ubú who shows himself like the most powerful,
although, really, he is a coward.
The play is about the wishes of power and the vital necessities of
the human beings. It’s a ironic performance that criticizes the
human nature. Ubú means the corruption of the power and the ambition
in any kind of government’s system: revolution, fascism, democracy, etc.
Ubú moves around the stage with a ridicule moustache when he is “Hitler”.
On an another moment, he is in a authoritarian situation when he is “Clinton”
and he is saying a dominant monologue while he is fucking the scholarship
holder, or when he is “Bush”.
All of these kind of government’s systems fall in the temptation of
the money. It’s the Globalization the economical way through which the
differences between the lifestyle of the people are canceled.
Important negative values of the human beings are stood out in the play
such as the hypocrisy. Ubú is talking with his good friend, Monomonarca,
about the necessity of taking the “Capitalism” towards new
horizons. When they haven’t already anything to do or to manipulate in South of
America, they are talking about East. The hypocrisy is showed through an
Eastern woman who tries to get being a rich woman before the capitalism
arrives. This character relates directly what it must be done with the fool and
rebellious citizens. She even trades with the sex. She sells a exotic ballet
dancer in exchange for doing rich herself.
Another important aspect in the play is the avarice of Ubú
when he has all kind of food and in a lot of sum and he doesn’t want to share
it with the hungry people of the town.
We can see the corruption and the abuse of the power in an excellent
scene when Ubú forces all kind of people ( nobles, diplomats, taxi drivers, the
poorest people of the town like thieves and even a prince) without any
necessary reason, to pass to death through a kind of modern guillotine.
The drug is another aspect which reflects the corruption
of the all of the characters.
The play begins with Ubú speaking in an
interesting and strangely distorted language saying “mierdra”. It’s
this word which we are going to listen during the rest of the play which
finishes when all of the characters fall in a toilet where there’s only shit.
Ubú falls also in this place while he’s raising his hand in a representative
gesture of sending everyone in the world to the shit and while he’s saying “God is the man; the man is shit; God is
shit”.
During the play appears also another character
who is the conscience. It persecutes Ubú constantly but Ubú
doesn’t listen to it.
I
think that this last sentence summarizes perfectly the play: “being all
powerful one” is the same like “being a shit”.
This play is an ironic, comical and very creative spectacle and
produced, in the audience, a curious and in my opinion worrying reaction: a
young girl shouted “What rebulsion” when Ubú and Monomonarca gave a kiss each
other on the mouth what show us that the play looks for the provocation and it
gets it. I think that the actual society isn’t really ready to accept the new
laws about the homosexuality.