More controversially, in search of truth rather than punishment,

the [Truth and Reconciliation Commission] also invited agents of crimes

to tell their stories, providing evidence and information to complete the
understanding of the central period of modern South African history
[apartheid] (Wadsworth, 1710). Jane Taylor employs multimedia
approaches, live acting, puppetry, and references to Alfred Jarrys Ubu
Roi to create a chaotic and heart-wrenching tale of the testimonies
given by both victims and perpetrators of apartheid violence.
Chaos. There is no other characterization that can adequately
describe Alfred Jarrys Ubu Roi as chaos. Ubu is a crude, grotesque
figure, ruling with his symbolic scepter, a toilet brush. In Taylors play,
Ubus vulgarity becomes more sinister as he becomes a figure
representing the degraded authority of a morally corrupt police state
(Wadsworth, 1711). Taylor pulls Ubu from Jarrys chaos into her own
chaos of South African history. Pa Ubu and Ma Ubu wreak havoc on the
smaller individuals around them, knocking them over and stealing their
resources, a total disruption to their lives. There is no consideration
given to these individuals, they are literally smaller than them (as they
are fashioned from small puppets). Ubu is the unbeatable, unbreakable
moral corruption that is overpowering, quite literally, South Africa in its
totality.
Taylor blends a variety of theatrical practices and elements in
order to capture the experience of a healing South Africa, a country
desperately seeking answers and closure to an experience that tore
the country and its people apart. The multimedia, which allows for the
incorporation of actual testimony, is effective even as text but would
be striking in actual production. Furthermore, the puppets created by
the Handspring Puppet Company (responsible for the puppets of War
Horse) continue to distort our reality into a nightmarish world of threeheaded dogs and talking vultures. These puppets allow for the
exploration of a world fallen into disarray, and with the mythological
ties that these puppets have, it allows for a consideration of fate to be
brought into the discussion. Ubu believes that his work was just a part
of his job, and yet he is stained by it nonetheless. This work hounds
him like the three-headed dog Brutus that he frames for his crimes.
However, there is no complete resolution as Taylor leaves us to see Pa
Ubu and Ma Ubu escaping. This unresolved, unjustified ending leaves
the reader, or audience, to question how at peace this moment of
South African modern history really is. The injustices have been done
and put to rest, but has justice been served to those who had to suffer
this violence? Ubu and the Truth Commission leaves us with this chaos
of no answer, but the discomfort of no justice.