The fourth wall has been torn to shreds. In Ubu the King, Ramona Rotten and Denver Hoffman’s anarchic sprint through Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi, the audience is hurled into the nasty lives of the Ubus. Jarry first came up with the concept of Ubu Roi, itself a sort of adaptation of Macbeth, in his early teens to mock a teacher he detested. (The play premiered when Jarry was 23.) Hoffman and Rotten engage directly with Jarry’s intentions for his play in a prerecorded prelude, and that attention to Ubu’s inception shows.
The Meat Machine’s production, running now at Facility Theatre, directed and designed by Rotten, would make young Jarry proud. It’s a proudly stupid (stupid used positively here) satire of sociopathic warmongers, realist but never didactic. Michael Oakes is a perfect failson oaf as Daddy Ubu, his crybaby tendencies contrasted by Fay Florence-Steddum’s take on Mommy Ubu, a horny clown in Marie Antoinette makeup. The boilersuit-clad ensemble launches itself into the house and all over Rotten’s set, a candy-colored patchwork itself lovingly scattered on top of the set of Facility’s recent production of Endgame. Locations are announced Brecht-style, using handwritten placards presented by a hapless onstage technician.
Ubu the King
Through 8/23: Thu–Sat 7:30 PM; Facility Theatre, 1138 N. California, ticketsource.com/ramona-rotten, $25
In an arts landscape hung up on subtlety and wit, it’s heartening to see high-quality goofery like this shining bright, as evidenced by the critical acclaim for I Think You Should Leave and the recent Naked Gun reboot. Ubu the King has enormous energy, holding its audience in a vise grip and rocketing through the plot, buoyed at all times by its embrace of the stupidest and biggest choices.
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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
