UBU TRUMP – A tragi-comic play by Rainer Ganahl

UBU TRUMP 
A tragi-comic play by Rainer Ganahl, after Alfred Jarry

SATURDAY, 27 January 2018, 7pm
Spike Berlin, Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße 45

 

Alfred Jarry first presented his absurdist, expletive-filled play "King Ubu" in Paris in 1896, and instantly ignited a literary scandal. "King Ubu" not only influenced artistic movements such as Dada, Surrealism, and the Absurd Theater of Jean Genet and Samuel Beckett, but it anticipated, with frightening perspicacity, the catastrophic political madness of the 21st century. 

About 10 years ago, artist Rainer Ganahl rewrote Jarry’s text as "Ubu Lenin", and now, the advent of Donald Trump has presented an even more appropriately divisive, madcap, narcissistic stand-in for King Ubu.

Just like Jarry’s King Ubu, Trump and his cronies run their administration like a mafia family business, with barely fig-leafed personal enrichment schemes layered upon corrupt policies and, in all likelihood, treason. In "Ubu Trump", the father, King Ubu, has been replaced with Ubu Trump, while Mama Ubu is reincarnated as Ubu Ivanka. Originally set in Poland and Russia, the new play blends Warsaw with Washington, and Poland with the USA, alluding to Trump's special dealings with Putin and the new right-wing government in Poland.

www.stadiumstadium.de

www.ganahl.info

 

RAINER GANAHL is born in Austria and lives in New York.

 

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