Ubu Roi, ou, les Polonais

by Alfred Jarry

"Ubu Roi, ou, les Polonais" by Alfred Jarry is a play first performed in 1896. A wild and grotesque comedy, it follows the brutal Pa Ubu as his scheming wife convinces him to murder the King of Poland and seize power. Once crowned, Ubu terrorizes his subjects through greed and violence, sparking invasion and revolution. This shocking work scandalized audiences with its obscenity and childish chaos, yet revolutionized theater by shattering conventions and paving the way for modernism, Dadaism, and the Theatre of the Absurd.