Considered by some to have contributed to the birth of modernism, "Ubu Roi" is a comical play that is at once a wild and bizarre work which overturned the cultural rules, norms, and conventions of its day. A precursor to the "Theatre of the Absurd", the play satirizes the complacency, greed and abuse of power by the ruling class. In addition to "Ubu Roi," Alfred Jarry wrote two sequels, "Ubu Cuckolded," and "Ubu in Chains," which were never performed in his lifetime. According to an essay written by Jarry himself this trilogy, collected together here, can be described by the philosophy of "pataphysics" or the "science of imaginary solutions."
