Past Productions by mutatis mutandis

Ubu Rex (or the Polish play)

by Alfred Jarry
adapted by David Whiteley

In March of 2006, mutatis mutandis produced this restaging of their Fringe Festival hit. They brought it back in April in a double-bill with Ubu Mactwobu.

The cast featured some of Ottawa's most promising emerging talent: creator David Whiteley, David Hersh, Alan Jeans and Emmanuelle Zeesman. The four race frantically through the 40-odd characters of this frenetic, one-hour "Punch and Judy" take on Shakespearean tragedy.

The storyline is straight out of Macbeth: Ubu, prodded by his ambitious wife, kills the King of Poland, betrays the friend who helped him to the crown, ruins the country and is finally defeated by the King's son. But that's where the similarity ends. Written when Jarry was just 15 years old, Ubu Rex abounds in toilet humour, slapstick comedy and nonsense language, opening with the twistedly crass "Merdre!", rendered in this English adaptation as "Shbit!"

Ubu Rex was presented again in August 2006 in Andrew Hayden Park.

Ubu MacTwobu (or the Scottish Polish play)

by David Whiteley

Ubu Rex ends with with Papa Ubu escaping Poland and looking for new adventures elsewhere. Whiteley picks up on this invitation to a sequel, recycling Jarry's satire of Shakespeare for his own Ubu Mactwobu.

In this brand new play, Whiteley twists Shakespeare's Macbeth, intermingling a mangled rendition of Shakespeare's words with the "fuggling bluggery" Ubuspeak he perfected in his adaptation of Ubu Rex.