Bring Me The Head Of Ubu Roi is Pere Ubu's adaptation of the proto-Absurdist stage play that gave the band its name, Alfred Jarry's
Ubu Roi (King Ubu). Its premiere in Paris in 1896 provoked riots in the theatre and a national scandal. A vicious and satiric re-telling of Shakespeare's
Macbeth, Jarry's work lambastes do-gooder monsters and the Survival of the Unfit.
Jarry's play, infamously, opened with the exclamation
Merdre! - a euphemism for the French word for excrement. The closest English translation is
shtrrrr. It became known as
The Word.
Members of the band Pere Ubu perform all cast roles. Sarah Jane Morris is Mère Ubu. This series is a podcast of the first half of
Bring Me The Head Of Ubu Roi. An album of songs called
Long Live Père Ubu! will be released on September 14.
Podcasts available
here.
The concert tour begins Friday, September 25, at the ICA in London.