That at a point language becomes inconsequential in the process of communication was convincingly proved by the tremendous response to some plays staged during the Prithvi Festival '98. Nada's Ubu was in French and Pyramus & Thisbe by Ton Und Kirschen Theatre in German with a sprinkling of Latin, yet there were no deserters in the audience. The most obvious explanation for the success was the the sheer physicality of the performances. But there was much more to the shows than just eurythmics: the bodies in action revealed a spirit that transcended the need for words.Before the classification or its connotations in literature emerged, French poet and dramatist Alfred Jarry(1873-1907) was already creating drama of the Absurd. He named his theory `pataphysics', which elaborated means the ``science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments.'' This idea took root amongst French intellectuals and gave birth to the Theatre of the Absurd as in the plays by Ionesco, Beckett and Genet. At the age of 23 Jarry let loose upon the world the grotesque figure of Ubu, a personification of all that is base and stupid in mankind. In his own life and in other writings, he evolved, celebrated and even impersonated this tyrannical and and monstrous middle class creep who made himself King by wile, wicked and programmed butchery.Jarry's best-known work in English is Ubu Roi or King Ubu. But Ubu is everywhere in his writing. Nada took excerpts from the Ubu cycle and also turned to Rabelaiswho it seems was Jarry's inspiration for this parody on Oedipus Rex to create a play of incisive satirical humour. The action takes place in a non-existent country, synonymous for nowhere and anywhere. A husband and wife( Pa Ubu and Ma Ubu) start to lay the table for a ceremonial banquet. The implements, fruits, placement cards suddenly transform into props for another more gruesome reality lurking beneath the gentile surface.In shades of Lady Macbeth, Ma Ubu(Babette Masson) incites Pa Ubu (Laurent Fraune) to kill the King and seize power subsequent to which the couple stamp out all that comes in their way. Pa Ubu is an Idi Amin clone. Erstwhile conspirators are ruthlessly eliminated. And all this gruesome violence is vaunted on fruits: Grapes off the body of the puppet playing the king are eaten, the papaya's eyes are gored, face slashed, skull shattered. The red velvet table-cloth assumes the shape of a ceremonial victory chariot. The King's nephew escapes to Russia and returns with an army. And the begins now. A fierce battle is staged between Polish and Russian armies represented by the two actors. The military arsenal is vegetables - potatoes, the lowly lauki, onions, capsicums, and brinjals. On victory the entire opposition, represented by green onions is guillotined.For Ms. Masson, actress and scenographer, the vegetables offered the best possible range on `characters' to play with. ``We knew about the onion crisis, and for a moment thought of this, but then we went ahead with the `chopping-off' of onion heads. Maybe we gave another type of political impression. We replaced red cabbage with the papita, which both looks and sounds very dramatic. Actually, I imagine the set to be a kitchen where a couple is fighting. They have been together so long that they cannot separate. Basically both are stupid and cruel. Ma Ubu steals Pa Ubu's treasures and runs away. They meet in the forest (eloquently represented by a tree painted on cloth) where Ma tries to hide and even kill Pa Ubu''.If Ubu was an acting tour de force, Pyramus and Thisbe taken from `Metamorphoses' by Ovid which also formed the basis for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, was visual poetry. Going to the very roots of Greek theatre, the company of actors, who also doubled as musicians, created a fantasy world of Satyrs and Miniads within which to set the tragic love story. The famous wall was a billowing white cloth dexterously manipulated by the satyrs. Staged in the open air at Habitat, the performance glowed with energy and intensity.
