MÓNICA PANADERO SAYAS

Teatro Inglés Siglos XIX y XX

Grupo B

GESTAS DE PAPA UBÚ

The play to comment is Gestas de Papá Ubú of Alfred Jarry. The play took place

the 9 to the 27 of November in the theatre L’Altre Espai of Valencia. The company, the

distribution, and the artistic and technical personnel we can find in the attached

pamphlet.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

• Papa Ubú: he is the protagonist of the play. He is egoistic since he lives by his own

interest.  As the pamphlet says Ubú “deceives, betrays, robs, tortures, subjugates,

enslaves, tyrannizes, despises, kidnaps, extorts and assassin" all it to obtain the throne. 

He does not pronounce the words well, is a language difficult to understand but

simultaneously graceful

• Mama Ubú: she is the Ubú's wife but they have a lover and goes against of Ubú

although it only love him because he has obtained the throne.  At the end of the play she

is pregnant of Ubú but it dies in the childbirth and the boy is killed by Ubú.

• Memnón: He is the Mama Ubú's lover.  He claims to be singer but he makes enough

badly.  When Ubú takes control of the throne is disguised of the town so that it is not

discovered by Ubú, until he neglects and he is discovered and Ubú kills him in a hatch

where made bad people.

• Monomonarca: he is English, Ubú's friend.  Ubú kills to him to snatch the throne but

with the passage of time is again together and go of trip until he leaves to Ubú by a

Thailander dancer and Ubú becomes to be single

• Palotines: they are "raperos" that help Ubú to commit their fateful acts.

• Soldado: he was the soldier of the monomonarch but when dying he serves Ubú.  He

has a hard character and he has been only fulfilling his service in his working hours, not

for extra hours

• Conciencia: it is a baby with a diaper.  With this personification of the conscience it

demonstrates to us that Ubú has a mentality of a baby in man body since he is not

responsible nor it realizes his acts

SPACE: The play does not have a fixed scene since the acts take place in several

places.  Where they are we can imagine according to atrezzo or because they name the

place

ATREZZO: Atrezzo is made up of several objects depending where are the

characters.  The object that appear more in the play is a wood wheel that does of water,

of hatch where they kill to bad people or of a table

CLOTHES: Papa y Mama Ubú dress in vulgar clothes, as if they were beggar. 

Memnón wears to t-shirt and black trousers with the hair gathered with a pigtail.  The

monomonarch wears a sailor suit.  Palotines wears wide clothes as the "raperos" and the

conscience take to a dagger and glasses solely to dive

ILLUMINATION: the illumination was composed by the spotlight of the room without no special position, only illuminated to the characters having more or less

intensity of light depending on where they were

PERSONAL OPINION: The atmosphere in the theatre was magnificent,

prevailed silence except in the graceful scenes of Ubú where everybody broke that

silence with its laughter. the adaptation of the play was wonderful, Raul Hernandez has

been able to revive the epic cycle of this author, since as we can read in the pamphlet he

was a challenge for him and he was going it to try.  The critic to the power and the

ambition of the human nature with that touch of humour have enchanted me, with

humour it does not make so aggressive that eagerness of power that there is nowadays