having been king of aragon, you are content to ride in reviews at the head of 50 bumpkins armed with billhooks when you-- in ubu roi, a similar scene is like an upside down version. dignity is as lacking here as in a groucho marx movie or a punch and judy show. where shakespeare's characters speak in blank verse, exploring the whole range of human emotion, jarry's shout out crude threats and insults. and my god, madam, you really have come too far. it is clear that ubu roi burlesques shakespeare, but it is unlike the drama of its own time too. during an age when ibsen and chekhov were commenting in their own daring ways on the beliefs of their society, no one was quite like jarry. other playwrights put daring words into the speeches of their characters. jarry provided characters who are distortions of people, anatomic miracles and sartorial disasters. ibsen, with his well-made play, suggests that once social laws and attitudes are changed, the world may be an orderly place for reasonable people to live. other playwrights examine the inner lives of characters or puzzled over a philoso