King Ubu


			Friday, October 29, 2004 'King Ubu' Review: Reworking makes no secret of its disdain for the Bush administration. By ERIC MARCHESE Special to the Register It's no coincidence that Rude Guerrilla Theater Company brought out its reworking of "King Ubu" just in time for next week's election. In Alfred Jarry's 1896 comedy, a base, grotesquely stupid man overthrows the king of another country and, for no apparent reason, leads his own country into war. If that scenario didn't sound freakishly similar to at least 50 percent of the American electorate, then next Tuesday's battle for the White House wouldn't still be a dead heat. Not that this new version actually refers to our current commander- in-chief, whose name is never uttered. Company members [Dave Barton], Stephen Ludwig and Andrew Nienaber have punched up Jarry's original, spliced in the best scenes from the play's two sequels - "Ubu Enchained" (1900) and "Ubu Cuckolded" (1901) - and edited it into a seamless entity. To call RGTC's "Ubu" an update, though, would be inaccurate--little updating has been done to Jarry's texts. As circus music dissolves into "All Hail the Chief," Alfred Jarry (Sean Naughton) struts onstage to address us about his play--a re- creation of the introduction Jarry delivered at the Theatre de l'Oeuvre on Dec. 11, 1896. His swaggering manner, Texas accent, attire (cowboy hat, boots and dark suit), sniggering laugh and mangling of the English language leave no doubt as to who this figure is meant to parody. The first word of "King Ubu" is a synonym for dung, uttered by Pa Ubu (David Cramer) as he sits on the toilet (use of this word to open the play caused a scandal when "Ubu" was first performed). We're in the land of Turdistan, and in director David Mancini's world, Ubu and his wife (Kelly Quigley) are Bozo-like clowns with brightly colored Afros, and the military head, named Manure (Naughton), has a black Afro, black face, red lips and smiley-face medals on his uniform. Once Pa Ubu and Manure team up to overthrow King Sodomy (Nick Lawson), the plot of "King Ubu" is set into motion; what follows is akin to the Marx Brothers' "Duck Soup," with zany antics, one-liners, anti-military sentiment and miles of scatological references--the last faithful to Jarry's original. Without ever saying "Bush" or "Iraq," barbs of the current administration abound: a strutting Manure refers to "shock and awe," King Sodomy is referred to as "Saddam-me" and a character utters the oath "Holy Halliburton!" The President of Freedonia (Lawson), whom Ubu holds in great disdain, speaks with a French accent, while late in the play, Ma Ubu tries to ransack the "Bungdad" Museum. In a production of limitless silliness, Mancini has kept the tone light. A floor-tape outline of a corpse becomes the final home of one character every time she's knocked dead - even if it's several feet away. When Ubu's conscience appears to lecture him, it's a sock puppet. Battles are enacted using shadow puppets behind lighted screens or through slapstick horseplay. Characters deliver exaggerated line readings and interact with audience members in lightning-quick scenes separated by blackouts - a nod to Jarry's brand of comedy, a forerunner of absurdism. Still, the production's bitter disdain of the Bush administration is unmistakable. Pa Ubu states, "Remember, you're either for us or you're against us." Once in charge, he promises tax breaks - "but only to my friends and major corporate [donors]." At another point, he boasts, "to protect the surplus, we'll jack up the military- industrial complex and give tax breaks to all my friends!" Less lighthearted are the moments when Ubu insists that "a selfish cause is more powerful than a just one," when another character tells him, "in the four years you've been king, the blood you've shed cries out for vengeance," and when Ubu snickers defensively and says, "What's a thousand dead soldiers if I get what I want?" Rude G's version of "King Ubu" could be a ruthless indictment of the Bush administration's failures - but, oddly enough, the framework of Jarry's proto-absurdist, scatological tale doesn't provide Mancini, [Barton], Ludwig, Nienaber and company the kind of devastating ammunition they would need to properly do the job. An entirely new play would be needed for that. This production's mixture of the serious and the absurd is bizarre and, at times, bizarrely funny, but the anti-Bush bits aren't pointed enough - and Jarry's nose-thumbing at authority figures is also too broad and unspecific to really evoke sustained laughter. Mancini's cast members are game, throwing themselves wholeheartedly into the mix with the gusto and improvisational flair of circus clowns, with Cramer's Ubu a gleeful buffoon and comically distinctive work from Naughton, Lawson, Quigley and the ensemble. Those opposed to Bush may cheer this staging's intent while hoping for more. Bush supporters may either take offense or be totally unfazed. "Ubu 9/11" might have hit the bull's-eye; this "King Ubu" merely hits the target. Copyright 2004 The Orange County Register

			THEATER Vol. 10 No. 08 Oct. 29 - Nov. 4, 2004 Theater of the Assburd King Ubu should be overthrown by Joel Beers The people at Rude Guerrilla have never chosen a play based on getting asses in seats. No Neil Simon, no Shakespeare, no musicals, no tired adaptations of films, just work that strictly adheres to the left-of-center, political and sexualized aesthetic which the company has always championed. So their staging of King Ubu, Alfred Jarry’s landmark satire on a corrupt ruler who chooses to invade another country for economic gain, makes perfect sense. Adaptors Dave Barton, Stephen Ludwig and Andrew Nienaber have turned Jarry’s 1896 farce into a direct and timely attack on a certain sitting American president. From jokes about the Sept. 11 report to a hilarious prologue in which Jarry—wearing a cowboy hat and speaking with a Texas drawl—welcomes the audience to his play, Bush and Iraq are all over this play like flies on feces. Unfortunately, the play—and this production—is a mess. While there are moments of inspired lunacy, for the most part, this show just isn’t that funny. Worse, for a play chosen to comment directly on an ongoing war and the bumbling choices of perhaps the dumbest man to ever lead the so-called free world, the satire isn’t clever, provocative or intelligent enough to provoke outrage or even serious debate. Director David Grant Mancini and his very game, very talented cast, have a great time exploding theatrical conventions—from characters commenting on the lack of production values to actors interacting with the audience—even breaking character at times to comment on the ongoing antics. It’s definitely different. But so is fucking a goat. While the surreal, absurd, Marx-Brothers-missing-all-but-the-23rd-chromosome feel helps this Ubu succeed in subverting traditional ways of staging theater, it doesn’t help when it comes to subversive politics. And when mounting a play like this, at a time like this—that’s criminal. The most trenchant criticism of this show I heard came late in the 90-minute proceedings, when the scatologically obsessed, Bozo the Clown-like King Ubu and his henchmen, Piles and Lice, are attacked by a bear. The terrified King recites something that sounds like “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” in Latin while his subordinates battle the beast. One of those henchmen is on all fours, wearing boots on his hands and a plastic mask of an ass on his face, which prompted one audience member to mutter, “What the fuck?” Indeed.