ALFRED JARRY (1874)

Died Nov. 1, 1907, Paris.

Writer mainly known as the creator at 23 of the grotesque and wild drama Ubu roi (1896) considered the first work of the Theatre of the Absurd.

Though its first productions caused a scandal and it closed after two nights of rioting and cat calls its repercussions were still felt in the 20th century.

Jarry had exploded the common vision of the world and introduced the notions of absurdity, incoherence and defiance to all forms of authority.

A brilliant youth who had come to Paris at 18 to live on a small family inheritance, he frequented the literary salons and began to write. He cut a bizarre and eccentric figure around town, mounted on his bicycle, carrying and often exhibiting revolvers. His fortune was soon dissipated and he spiraled into an anarchical existence ending his life in utter destitution and alcoholism.

On Dec. 10, 1896 at the Théatre de l´Oeuvre the director Lugné-Poe presented Ubu roi, a dramatic sketch first conceived by Jarry at 15 with some schoomates to caricature a schoolmaster, Ubu, a monstrous, pompous, puppet-like character who becomes king of Poland, came to symbolize the crass stupidity and gross cupidity of the bourgeois driven to atrocious cruelties by his lust for power. Sequels to Ubu roi include Ubu enchainé (1900) and Ubu sur la butte (1901). The three plays were performed by Jean Vilar at the Théatre National Populaire in 1958.

Jarry also published stories and poems: Minutes de sable mémorial (1894) in a Symbolist vein followed by Les Jours et les nuits (1897) in which the soldier Sengle (Singular) abolishes by his dreams all barriers between the real and the imaginary. His novels L´Amour en visites (1898) and Le Surmâle (1902) are erotic but never obscene. Jarry invented a logic of the absurd that he christened "pataphysique" and analyzed in Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien (published 1911). It was purported to go beyond metaphysics and was "the science of imaginary solutions". The founders of the Dada and Surrealist movement used and amplified some of Jarry´s verbal devices.

This father of the theatre of derision denounced the world with a savage humour and his laughter is still heard from the last century.