Firlefanz Puppets presents UBU REX,

Oakley Hall III’s adaptation of Alfred Jarry’s 1896 absurdist play UBU ROI.
Albany, NY – January 9, 2010

Ed Atkeson, puppetmaker, Abby Fullem and Newll Eaton, stage managers, Steven
Patterson, GG Roberts, Greg Haymes, Joe Kraussman, Charlie Braverman and Monica
Miller – the voices. A play in five acts, with many scenes and one Intermision.

Alfred Jarry, 1898 Oakley Hall III, 1975 Oakley Hall III, 1998

At the play's opening last night Oakley began with a lengthy, unencouraging and buck-
passing speech while standing before the curtain, much to the boredom of the audience.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," he said,

“it would be absurd for an author to speak of his own play and for me to
come here and preface this presentation of Ubu Rex, before some critics
have cared to discuss it — among whom I must thank, Tim Cahill, Tim
Kane, David Brickman, Susan Holland, William Jaeger and Nadine
Wasserman —, if I did not feel that they would find Ubu's giant belly full of
more satirical symbols than we could possibly pump up tonight.

Swedenborgian philosophers have compared rudimentary creations to the

most perfect and embryonic beings, in that the former lack all
irregularities, protuberances and qualities, which leaves them in more or
less spherical form, like the ovum and M. Ubu, while the latter have added
so many details that they remain equally spherical, following the axiom
that the most polished object is that which presents the greatest number of
sharp corners.

You are free to see in. Ubu however many allusions you care to - or else a
simple puppet — a student’s caricature of one of his professors who
personified all the ugliness of this world. It is this aspect that the Firlefanz
Puppets will present tonight. Our actors have been willing to depersonalise
themselves for two evenings and one afternoon, and to act behind a curtain
in order to express more perfectly the inner man, the soul of these
overgrown puppets you are about to see.

This play, having been put on prematurely, and with more enthusiasm than
anything else, Ed didn’t have time to make a real mask for Ubu (which is
very inconvenient to wear anyway), and the other characters were fitted
out, like him, somewhat approximately. It seemed very important for us to
be puppets — Ubu Rex is a play that was never written for actors, but for
puppets acting like actors, which is not the same thing.

Also important for us was to have carnival music, and Mary Jane and
Mike have served us well with their carnival music collage. Mainly we
wanted to see Ubu incarnate in the versatile talent of Steven Patterson, and
this weekend are the only three performances that he and his fellow voices
have been free to relinquish to us.

We will proceed with three acts that have been rehearsed, and two that
have been rehearsed with certain cuts, and a bunch more that have not
been fully rehearsed at all. I have made all the cuts the actors wanted, even
cutting several passages indispensible to the meaning and equilibrium of
the play, while leaving in at their request certain scenes I would have been
glad to cut; for, however much we'd like to be marionettes, we haven't
hung all out actors on strings, which, even if that wasn't absurd, would
have complicated things badly. If all the actors had strings, and the
puppets have strings, in the end we would have had a stage full of crossed
wires and a tangled mess. In the same way, we haven't been too literal
about our crowd scenes, since in a puppet-show - a handful of strings and
pulleys serve to command a whole army. You must expect to see
important personages like Father Ubu and the Czar forced to gallop neck-
and-neck on cardboard horses that we've spent last night painting in order
to supply the action.

The first three acts, at least, and the final scenes, will be played complete,
as they were written. Our stage setting is very appropriate, because, even
though it's easy to set your scene in eternity, and - for instance -to have
someone shoot off a revolver, here you must accept doors that open out on
plains covered with snow falling from a clear sky, chimneys adorned with
clocks splitting to serve as doors, and palm-trees growing at the foot of
bedsteads for the little elephants sitting on shelves to munch on.

As to a orchestra which isn't here, we'll miss only its brilliance and tone.
The themes for Ubu will be performed offstage by Mary Jane Leach on
electronics and pre-recorded sounds and Michael Eck on jewsharp, and
various stringed instruments. As to the action -- which is about to begin --
it takes place in Poland -- that is to say, NoWhere.”
 Paul Jossman, Ed Atkeson and Oakley Hall III Alfred Jarry – Monssieur Ubu, woodcut

UBU ROI, Alfred Jarry – First Edition, cover, 1896 UBU REX, show card poster, 2010