Executive summary of the Ubu plays
Alfred Jarry’s trilogy of absurdist, scatological plays about the grotesque cartoon figure, Père or Father or Pa Ubu, scandalised theatre-goers at the time (the late 1890s) but were to be revived and lionised by the Surrealists in the 1920s and ’30s, and to become a reference point for the Theatre of the Absurd long after Jarry’s premature death in 1907 at the age of just 34. This is the second in the trilogy.
Ubu Cocu
Ubu Cocu is French for ‘Ubu Cuckolded’.
A note says the text is restored as it was performed by the marionettes of the Théâtre des Phynances (fans will recognise ‘phynances’ as one of Jarry’s many made-up words), so it was first performed by puppets.
Another note tells us that this translation was adapted for radio by Martin Esslin and broadcast on BBC radio in December 1965.
Act 1
Scene 1: Very short speech by Achras explaining that he is a breeder of polyhedra i.e. many-sided shapes.
Scene 2: A flunkey brings in the visiting card of Ubu who now goes by the title of Professor of Pataphysics.
Scene 3: Enter Ubu complaining that Achras’s front door was too small for him to enter and then proceeds to explain that he is a famous professor of pataphysics, says that yes he will accept the invitation to move in, with his wife and children, and when Achras complains, Ubu says he is welcome to move out.
Scene 4: Ubu consults his Conscience who he carries around in an old suitcase. His Conscience emerges from the case as a tall thin man in shirt-tails. He advises Ubu not to kill Achras, the old man is defenceless and it would be a coward’s trick. Whereupon Ubu says he’ll do it, and sends his Conscience back to his suitcase.
Scene 5: Enter Achras being pushed backwards by Ubu’s three big red packing cases which he’s pushing into the room. Ubu asks him to him a favour. Ubu has become aware that his wife is having an affair with An Egyptian (who, surreally, combines the functions of a clock at dawn and a sewage truck driver at night). Ubu wants to punish this Egyptian by impaling him and politely asks Achras if he can help him out by testing out the impaling device first. When Achras refuses and says that Ubu has already stolen his house from him, Ubu relents and says it was just his little joke.
Scene 6: Out of the three red packing cases climb the Palcontents who proceed to sing a song. Their names are Crapentake, Binanjitters, Fourzears. As they sing and circle Achras, bewildering him, a stake emerge from the floor, rises under his chair and literally impales him, while the Palcontents ransack all his belongings looking for cash.
Scene 7: Pa brings Ma Ubu into the room and she politely says she’d like to meet the host whereupon Pa Ubu points to the chair on which Achras sits, impaled and unconscious, and Ma Ubu screams.
Act 2
Scene 1: Same scene with Achras impaled in his chair. Ubu’s Conscience climbs out of his suitcase and wakes Achras, who acknowledges he ought to be dead, then disempales him. They discuss how to get revenge on Ubu and Achras suggests placing the armchair on the edge of a trapdoor. The Conscience gets back into his case.
Scene 2: Enter Ubu who tells Achras he doesn’t like the way his cook prepares his dishes and plumps down in the armchair which promptly falls through the floor. Ubu gives a nonsensical description of how being wedged in the floorboards is flaying his transverse colon while Achras makes an equally ludicrous suggestion to read him some ‘characterclystic’ passages from his book about polyhedra.
Scene 3: Ubu promises his Conscience some time off if he’ll only help him out of the trapdoor. The Conscience does so but then Ubu runs up and down the room jumping for joy and his Conscience warns him he’ll fall through again. Somehow his Conscience has got into a situation where he’s hanging upside down from his feet. He begs Ubu to get him down which Ubu refuses, saying he must digest his dinner, before the Conscience wriggles about and falls on him.
Scene 4: The Palcontents stand up in their suitcases and sing a song of praise to Ubu who lights his green candle which emits music. The three Palcontents sing of their recent missions. Ubu tells them to shut up and delivers a nonsensical speech about the perfection of the sun and the sphere. The Palcontents sing more praise of Ubu who delivers a fake learned speech packed with Latin tags which leads up to the presentation of the Pschittapump. Ubu asks the Palcontent who travels to Egypt to being him back some mummy-grease.
Scene 5: The Palcontents sing while a statue of Memnon (from Egypt) is erected onstage. The song describes how Ubu wakes and bosses about his Palcontents on the parade ground.
Act 3
Scene 1: The Palcontents sing how they walk among pedestrians till they spy a rentier who they proceed to beat up and load with fetters.
Scene 2: Enter Rebontier the rentier who complains how Ubu demands money from him or subjects him to the bleed-pig machine in the Place de la Concorde. Enter from the other side of the stage Achras. While trying to escape and ranting they collide with each other and start fighting. One of Ubu’s tax collectors or woolidogs enters and they talk about escaping to Egypt.
Scene 3: Dawn breaks and the statue of Memnon plays a tune on his flute. Surprisingly Memnon sings that he was a cabinet-maker who lived in the Rue du Champs de Mars and used to go every Sunday to watch the rentiers being debrained.
MEMNON: One, two, watch the wheels go round.
Snip, snap, the brains fly all around.
With the Palcontents singing the chorus: Hip-hip, arse-over-tip! Hurrah for old Ubu!
Scene 4: The Palcontents climb back into their cases and enter the cobbler Scytotomille. Rebontier asks him for some shoes and Scytotomille offers him some turd-crunchers and other similar products.
Scene 5: The Palcontents seize Achras who complains that he’s already been impaled once and Rebontier who says he’s late for an appointment with the bleed-pig. When they call Scytotomille to come to their aid, the Palcontents set him on fire. Then they throw Rebontier and Achras into the barrel base of Memnon.
Act 4
Scene 1: Memnon adjusts his hat and welcomes Ma Ubu to the stage. they hear voices and retire to the lavatory at the back.
Scene 2: Ubu heard offstage prides himself on stealing Achras’s house and is now looking for somewhere to throw up his dinner. Ma Ubu panics and says they’re lost. Is this because…is the implication that she’s having an affair with Memnon? Seems to be confirmed when Memnon says that, by looking out the window, he can see Ubu’s (cuckold)’s horns. Panicking, Memnon jumps into the toilet.
Scene 3: Memnon going in meets Ubu’s Conscience coming out. Conscience says he deserved his punishment. They hear the voices of the Palcontents coming closer and say they need to duck down again, and drag Ma Ubu into the toilet with them.
Scene 4: The Palcontents, holding green candles, light Ubu to the toilet which he sits on and which promptly collapses.
UBU: Is the pshittapump out of order? Answer me or I’ll have you all debrained?
Scene 5: Memon sticks his head up and says yes. Ubu says he’ll gouge his eyes out and pushes him back down in the toilet before locking himself into the toilet room with the Palcontents.
Act 5
Scene 1: Rebontier and Achras talking about something completely different. Rebontier says he saw the customs officers open a suitcase addressed to Ubu in which were a man and a stuffed monkey. Achras contradicts him and says he thinks they were Egyptian mummies. Rebontier contradicts him and says the mummies and the monkey jumped out of their suitcase to much consternation and caught a tram.
Scene 2: Enter Ubu who tells Achras to bugger off. The latter points out that this is his home. Ubu turns to Rebontier and accuses him of adultery with his wife, then orders the Palcontents to knock him down. He asks Rebontier whether he is a cuckold but Rebontier cannot answer as he is being beaten up. Ubu then delivers a nonsense lecture about the damage that is being done to the Broca’s area of his brain, starting by quoting an actual medical textbook but quickly degenerating into the usual rhodomontade about twisting his nose and nears, removing his tongue, having him impaled, hanged, drawn and quartered…after which he’ll let him go.
Ubu goes into the toilet to fetch his Conscience while Rebontier struggles free of the Palcontents and runs off howling chased by them, as Ubu re-enters leading his Conscience by the hand.
Scene 3: Ubu notices Achras is still there and asks him why he hasn’t buggered off, pointing out that the play has gone on too long. At which point a crocodile crosses the stage with a noise like an engine whistle.
Scene 4: Achras, Ubu and his Conscience then discuss the nature and anatomy of the crocodile with Ubu absurdly declaring it must be a whale while his Conscience insists it’s a snake. Ubu agrees that it must be a snake. Achras leans down to smell it and says one thing is certain: it ain’t no polyhedron!
Comment
Now this really is absurd – significantly weirder than the relatively realistic and relatable political plot of Ubu Roi. And it ends on a note of pure surrealism. You can see how this, more than the first play, would feed into the wartime Dada movement, and then into post-war surrealism. It’s has that genuinely unhinged randomness.
Credit
I read ‘Ubu Cocu’ in the 1965 translation by Cyril Connolly, included in ‘The Ubu Plays’, first published by Methuen World Classics in 1968 and republished in a new paperback edition in 1993.
Related links
- Alfred Jarry Wikipedia article
- The Ubu plays in French
- Illustrated English version of Ubu with hand-written text
Books & Boots 