After having been king, then presumed dead and buried, Ubu is resurrected in a fresh formula: in concert! Pa' Ubu is once again unleashed, this time musically, and his songs sweeten in a parodic manner the cruel and grotesque demeanour of the tyrannical couple: "The past is in the past, the future must be discussed/ Your people is now dead, let's find you another instead!".

Alongside his cajoling, infamous wife, Ubu is back to break the chains of freedom, to unbridle slavery, and to bring a terribly comical sort of chaos among the dumpsters where he wakes up. Where is that? On the margins of society and at its centre, in our midst, everywhere and nowhere, in the world of permanent recycling and endless filth.

Now, Ubu wishes to be "a slave at the feet" of the citizens, polishing their shoes most diligently, polishing their feet zealously and sadistically - since the phantom of the Marquis de Sade is haunting Monstre-Martre: "Ah, mister Ubu, you're so rough/ I can feel your criminal past in your brush/ You'll make your clients ill/ If you brush with such passion and skill."

The orchestra of the free citizens, the choir of the French ladies, the English tourist, the whip of the Marquis de Sade, all of these comprise Ubu's royal court in prison, where Ubu is rebuilding his palace, overturning like in a carnival all social and human rules. In such a topsy-turvy world, dominated by the cult of triviality, horror, stench, bleakness etc., the "immortal" Ubu family can only lead the people to "the next disaster."

As Jarry himself said, this is a distortive mirror placed before the spectators, so that we can laugh and shudder not only at the events of the late-nineteenth century or the troubles of the twentieth, which are still valid today, but at the constant unpredictability of history, as well. After all, isn't theatre an exercise in recycling, revaluation, critical distance, and awareness?