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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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PERE UBU
The ICA, London, September 25th
2009 |
'The genuine Père Ubu'
by Alfred Jarry |
| Merdre!
It’s Carry on Pataphysics – again. Pere
Ubu have just released Long Live Pere
Ubu, the CD of David Thomas’s adaptation of
Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi, Bring me the Head
of Ubu Roi, which eagle-eyed readers will recall
being premiered
at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall last year.
It was one of the most entertaining nights of 2008.
Thomas and his band are on the road to promote the
disc. Vocalist Sarah
Jane Morris should be with them, but is indisposed,
her physical presence as Mere Ubu being taken by
a rather unflattering assembly of cardboard boxes
on the left of the stage. Her part is sung and spoken
by Mr Thomas (“I knew it was a fucking mistake
…” he confides in the audience at the
end of the show). Projected on the rear of the stage
are the animations produced for the film by the
Brothers Quay. |
| Also
on stage, “providing gagarin atmospheres and
more” is digital sculptor Gagarin
(aka Dids); actually he’s mostly responsible
for the constant background of flushing toilets,
overworked digestive systems, belches and farts,
lots of farts (“Where are the farts? Turn
up the fucking farts. My people need to hear the
farts”). |
| We’re
close up to the stage in the small theatre (I imagine
it’s called a performance space) at the hopelessly
hip ICA, in
the basement of the Eastern section of Carlton House
Terrace, facing onto the Mall. Outside it’s
all very Regency and John Nash. Inside it’s
back to the new Universities of the 1970s, coffee
bar cool and heavy-framed late 1990s advertising-agency
spectacles.In the performance space there’s
a very mixed bunch. Some of the earnest young folk
have found their way in, but there’s also
a jolly crowd of unreformed Stranglers teeshirt-wearing
and beer gut- bearing baldies. It can’t be
more than two-thirds full, and we’re dangerously
approximate to the stage, and to Mr Thomas. But
that gives a far superior view of what’s actually
going on than we got at Queen Elizabeth Hall. |
| Make
no mistake: it’s still chaos up there, but
a far more organised chaos than one might have imagined.
As David Thomas explained, “there is not one
moment in its entirety, and various facets, that
is not carefully crafted”. But of course that
disciplined approach absolutely contradicts what
Pere Ubu stand for: “You hire Pere Ubu”
according to Thomas, “because you want to
be scared out of your professional wits. Because
you want to experience something that no one else
can deliver, the thrill of the truly dangerous moment
and its power to reveal”. And the tensions
this provokes are played out very evidently on the
stage. |
 |
| Thomas
is quite splendid as the misanthrope Pere Ubu, and
quite accomplished as his wife Mere Ubu too, although
occasionally he gets his voices, from southern preacher
through a range of Disney characters, a tad confused.
|
| He’s
shrink-wrapped into his raincoat, and apparently
drinking heavily from a flask – or is it Ubu
that’s drinking? He often breaks out of character
as he shuffles through his script sheets (“where
are the words? I’ve spent two fucking years
writing this and now I can’t find the words’)
and frequently leaves the stage to refill the flask
with something (the Pere Ubu rider demands a bottle
of Remy Martin for every show). On one journey he
pauses to ask cross-dressing drummer Steve Mehlman,
“How am I doing Steve?”. “You’re
drunk” comes the resigned reply. Well maybe,
but it didn’t diminish Thomas’s performance
one bit. His singing was hugely powerful, all the
songs benefiting from the less theatrical setting.
Because although it’s easy to lose sight of
it in the mayhem, the music is really full throttle
Pere Ubu rock and roll. In addition to their playing
(Robert Wheeler’s theramin was mesmerising)
the band also gamely played out parts of the play:
Mehlman plays Captain Ordura, who, betrayed by Ubu
when he seizes Poland, returns to defeat the usurper
with the help of the Czar of Russia. Bassist Michele
Temple turned in a very lively Polish Army, a messenger
who receives one of the best lines of the show (but
only at Thomas’s third attempt), and Prince
Buggerlas, who is restored to the throne following
Ubu’s defeat. I did explain the plot didn’t
I? |
 |
| It
doesn’t really matter. As Thomas said just
before the end of the show, having spent about ten
minutes on the floor (post defeat in battle, Ubu
is sleeping in a remote cave where he is eventually
reunited with Mere Ubu), “nothing that happens
up here matters at all”. But that doesn’t
mean it’s not worth listening to it, nor to
the music on the CD, nor to Thomas’s play
itself which can be downloaded as Podcast.
Better still, if you can, seek out an unforgettable
live performance. It will be. – Nick Morgan
(photographs by Kate) |
Check
the index of all reviews:
Nick's Concert Reviews
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There's nothing more down there... |
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