Jarry’s Macbeth-inspired yarn about a flatulent slob and his harridan wife’s rise and fall here becomes a dryly grotesque satire on greed, in which all Ubu wants is “a big sombrero.” Thomas plays both Pere and Mere Ubu, while, in-between powering the show’s musical heart, the band play everything from the Polish Army and sackcloth-clad peasants to a collapsing horse and a rubber-headed chicken representing the Judges. The audience themselves become an informal chorus Brecht would have died for.
An opening overture accompanied by animated captions from the Brothers Quay sets a woozily grandiloquent tone, only to be upended by some ungainly dance routines the band throw themselves into with gusto. Drummer Steve Mehlman, in particular, relishes the opportunity to wear a dress. Buttoned-up in a long raincoat, Thomas delivers his lines in either a corpulent growl or a strangled yelp to delineate each character. What follows is a magnificently rough and not always ready lo-fi piece of post-punk musical theatre that chimes perfectly with the post-recessionary reclaiming of lo-fi cabaret.
At times wilfully shambolic, the missed cues that cause Thomas to step out of character to berate either himself or the band’s school nativity acting style almost has the second half running away with itself. This, though, looks like deliberate sabotage in an all too contemporary provocation in an Ubuised world.
Star rating:****
