French poet, essayist, novelist, dramatist, playwright and puppeteer. He was associated with the Symbolist movement and the Mercure de France, and was the creator of the pseudoscience ’Pataphysics. His Drama in five Acts in prose Ubu Roi (King Ubu), was a precursor in the emergence of the ’Théâtre de l’Absurde’.

Jarry’s work has parallels to Carroll or Lear, Stoppard or Beckett and Albee. His science of imaginary solutions, found in Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien provided inspiration to later Absurdists such as Arrabal and Ionesco. Playwrights Antonin Artaud and Roger Vitrac helped found The Alfred Jarry Theatre.

Père Ubu, the ’Father Ubu’ character of Jarry’s play (who began life as Père Heb in Les Polonais), has been a source of reference in many modern music arenas. For example, the name was adopted by Cleveland band Pere Ubu and a track titled Ubu Noir appears on Scatology by UK band Coil. Paul McCartney was engaged in reading the play when he was writing Maxwell Silver Hammer and Mark E. Smith embedded Ubu Roi is a home Hobgoblin in the lyrics of The Fall’s City Hobgoblins.

Jarry was a diminutive or ’vertically challenged’ character who lived the latter part of his life in a horizontally-divided apartment in Paris, where visiting guests had to manoeuvre in a crouched position. He would walk the streets with a loaded pistol, drank heavily and was not averse to the use of opiates. His lifestyle doubtless attributed to his death from tuberculosis at the young age of 34.

Born September 8, 1873, Laval, Mayenne, France.
Died November 1, 1907, Paris, France.