This play is Gestas de Papá Ubú of Alfred Jarry. The play took place from 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.
Papa Ubú: He is the protagonist of the play. He
is an egoistic person. As the pamphlet says Ubú “deceives, betrays, robs,
tortures, subjugates, enslaves, tyrannizes, despises, kidnaps, extorts and
assassin" all this to obtain the throne. He does not pronounce the words
with an invented way, but we can interpreted, is a language difficult to
understand but simultaneously graceful.
Mama Ubú: She is Ubú's wife but they have a
lover who 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 she dies in the
childbirth and the boy is killed by Ubú.
Memnón: He is 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 pass 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
where he forggets his job.
Conciencia: It is a baby with a diaper. With
this personification of the conscience he demonstrates to us that Ubú has a
mentality of a baby in man body since he is not responsible of his acts.
SPACE:
The play does not have a fixed scene, we can
know the scenery because we imagined according to atrezzo or because they name
the place. They only represent the place with objects for example with a kind
of stairs to represent a bunk where he talks to the followers, with a big
circle made of wood to represent a table or to represent a bunk.
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 seems to be a water, of hatch where they kill the bad people or of a
table.
CLOTHES:
Papa y Mama Ubú dress in vulgar clothes, as if
they were beggar. Memnón wears 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. So in my opinion the play has a good thematic because it
talks about the repression of the dictatorship, the jugglery of a wife that
want another man, etc.