A review by flatmtns
The Ubu Plays by Alfred Jarry

4.0

I can't imagine that I would have enjoyed any of these 3 plays on their own. Ubu Rex, especially, was pretty flat and predictable, and I didn't really enjoy any of it until the fight with the bear at the end. It seemed to derive its content almost exclusively from fart puns. Cuckolded got a little weirder, with more characters coming back from the dead, interacting with their own consciences, bizarre contraptions, etc. Enchained was amazing, with good jokes, madcap reversals of power and obedience, explorations of unfettered greed and vanity, and pointless dead-end plot twists. I don't know whether Jarry intended for the three to be understood as a sequence, but I felt that each part needed the others to grow to an awesome climax of face-melting thoughtful weirdness.