From playwright Adam Seelig, founder and director of One Little Goat Theatre Company in Toronto, comes a new play of timely absurdity: Ubu Mayor: A Harmful Bit of Fun. This anti-musical is the result of intoxicatingly driving Alfred Jarry's 1896 merde-filled masterpiece Ubu Roi head-first into the internationally renowned antics, absurdities and obscenities of Toronto's mayor Rob Ford and his brother Doug. Ubu Mayor tells the frolicsome tale of a mayor (Ubu) whose wife (Huhu) is having an affair with his older brother (Dudu). Ubu wants Huhu to love him again; Ubu wants what's best for the city; but both his love and political ideals are foiled by brother Dudu's machinations. Readers will enjoy the Fordish banter, presented in Seelig's iconoclastic dramatic style, and enjoy dipping into the music for such ridiculously poignant tunes as "B-b-b-bacon," "Etobicokaine," and "Plenty to Eat at Home." As Toronto stands at the brink of Ford More Years, everyone will want to read this harmful bit of fun just before the highly anticipated municipal elections. After all, because of everything Toronto has been through, if we don't laugh we might just cry.

ADAM SEELIG is a poet, playwright, stage director, and the founder and artistic director of One Little Goat. He is the author of Every Day in the Morning (slow) (2010) and his plays include Ubu Mayor: a Harmful Bit of Fun (2014), Parts to Whole (2014) Like the First Time ( 2011), Talking Masks (2009), Antigone : Insurgency (2007) and All Is Almost Still (2004). He is the recipient of a Canadian Commonwealth Scholarship for drama, and of a Stanford University Golden Award for his study of Samuel Beckett’s manuscripts (published in Modern Drama). Seelig’s writings have appeared in various journals, including World Literature Today, Poetics.ca and Poetry.

Adam Seelig's profile page

"a tour de force" —Globe and Mail

ldquo;Toronto's enterprising One Little Goat is North America's only theatre company devoted to contemporary poetic theatre —New York Times

“As far as the script is concerned, Seelig has written a great one. It’s chalked full of humour and insight. The dialogue is peppered with plenty of Ford sound bites while retaining the spirit of Jarry’s original play. The subject matter is at times crude and the language dirty. But that’s the way it’s supposed to be.” —Mooney on Theatre

“Ubu Mayor is an entertaining, topsy-turvy absurdist romp of political shenanigans and scandal. With music. It really is better to laugh than cry.” —Life with more Cowbell