Alfred Jarry, Lithographic cover for one of three issues of Répertoire des Paintins, executed at the time of the 1898 marionette revival of Ubu Roi at composer Claude Terrasse's Théâtre des Pantins, Paris.
I can still hear my mother telling me sadly: “You know, my little one, he is dead, the
poor man.” And we really felt the hurt
of it, it was my first real grief. For
he was a most charming companion to us children.
I know
nothing of Jarry the man of letters, whom so many others knew. But the simple, kind and childlike Jarry, the
friend to children, deserves to be remembered.
This was the Jarry I knew, the one who spoke to children with the heart
of a child.
Alfred Jarry in 1903-4
First of
all, there was the Théâtre des Pantins, at 6, Rue Ballu, near the Place
Blanche. To the small children we then
were, my brother Jean and I, this theater was a place full of enchantment, a
forbidden paradise. It was there, at the
table, that I so often picked up and played with those puppets which
represented Père Ubu, Mère Ubu, the Palotins, and especially, the Bear.
Pierre Bonnard: Claude Terrasse and his two sons, Jean and
Charles, 1903. Bonnard, who designed the original Ubu Roi set and two years later with Jarry, its marionette cast, was Claude Terrasse's brother-in-law and uncle to his memoirist son.
I often
saw them sitting around this table, sorting out the puppets, or repairing them,
or just talking. Firstly there was Uncle
Pierre, Pierre Bonnard, here the puppet maker but otherwise, because he was of
course a painter, it was he who had decorated the theater. Then my father and Franc-Nohain, Ferdinand
Herold, and finally, he who I never heard called anything except Père Ubu, but
whom I called, using the familiar “tu,”
just plain Alfred: Alfred Jarry.
Pierre Bonnard, Self-Portrait, 1906.
One
night he provoked my father into a duel.
A duel with gruyere and red wine.
Who could finish first, eating three or four ounces of gruyere cut into
tiny pieces, or drinking a glass of wine, both with a teaspoon. Neither one of them managed it, they both
laughed so much, the one at the sight of the other swallowing, the other
because he could no longer swallow at all.
Another of the three issues of Répertoire des Paintins with
Alfred Jarry lithographic cover, 1898.
He
taught me many things. He remembered so
much from his school days. And it was he
who taught me my first word of Latin, and, by repeating it the way he said it,
I can still remember it the way he said it: T-A ta B-E-R taber N-A taberna C-U cu nacu bernacu tabernacu L-O lo
culo naculo bernaculo tabernaculo R-U-M rum
lorum culorum naculorum bernaculorum tabernaculorum. It has to be said all in one breath.
Alfred Jarry, Ubu letterhead design for Théâtre
des Pantins, 1898.
He
always seemed the same, a kindly man, who rarely laughed, but who was never morose
either, although he was sometimes a little sarcastic, but he always regarded me
with a beautiful smile, and whenever I approached him he would always deposit
on my forehead his little mechanical kiss.
Page from the original theatrical program for Ubu Roi, performed one time only on December 10, 1896.
NOTES:
1. “After us, the Savage God” -- William Butler Yeats, after attending the premiere performance of
Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi, Théâtre de l’OEuvre,
Paris, December 10, 1896, which resulted in a riot and the banning of the play.
2. Charles Terrasse's moving anecdotes above are excerpted from Alastair Brotchie's essential and highly recommended Alfred Jarry, A Pataphysical Life , published 2011 by MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
