Ubu enchaîné. 2005

Ubu enchaîné (2005)

by Alfred Jarry
and by Roberto Latini e Gianluca Misiti
with Roberto Latini and Paolo Pasteris
music and assistant director Gianluca Misiti
interactive digital environments Andrea Brogi
motion capture assistant Paolo Pasteris
lights and technical direction Max Mugnai
direction of scene Dario Palumbo
video in croma key Pierpaolo Magnani
scene photo Cristiano Colangelo
adaptation and direction Roberto Latini
production Fortebraccio Teatro
with the support of Armunia Festival Costa degli Etruschi, CSS Teatro Stabile d’Innovazione, Florian Teatro Stabile d’Innovazione
and in collaboration with Art Mama Factory, Blue Cheese Project, Ass. Cult. Dn@, Xlab Digital Factory
first performance Udine, Teatro San Giorgio, December 14th 2005.

Ubu enchaîné, Roberto Latini / Fortebraccio Teatro, 2005

by Serena Terranova
After seeing a lot of military action and being awarded a long list of aristocratic titles, after being King of Poland and Aragon, Father Ubu abandons his role as leader of the people and says he is ready to become a slave. This declaration of intent signals the beginning of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu enchaîné, written in 1899 as the third installment of the Ubu saga, comprising Ubu roi (1888), Ubu cocu (1898) and finally Ubu sur la butte (1901). In Ubu enchaîné, Jarry (apparently) reverses bloody Father Ubu’s bloody career, always in the company of his better half Mother Ubu, playing for us a character struggling with a new, higher goal: “I want to do well by the people I pass in the street, Mother Ubu […] I’ll go and make myself a slave.” His new resolution has him offering his services to everyone he meets. In Father Ubu and his unexpectedly obedient attitude his soldiers recognize the value of a new unlimited freedom worthy of admiration. His theory, according to which voluntary servitude is the best service that can be rendered to Masters, spreads to the point of filling the prisons with convicts. Father Ubu then sees his plan quashed and finds himself once again king, a king of slaves (freer than free men), at the head of an army of convicts striving to defend their right to eternal captivity, tied to balls and chains and humiliated. The final scene sees Father Ubu at the head of his slave army on a Turkish galley on which they have embarked on the orders of King Suleiman.