The Pope’s Mustard-Maker is now available from Black Scat Books! Translated by Doug Skinner!

Le Moutardier du pape was the last work that Alfred Jarry finished, a few months before his death in 1907. It was one of many operettas he worked on in his last years, and one of the few he finished: a bawdy three-act farce loosely based on the medieval legend of Pope Joan, with a huge cast and lively songs bubbling with rhymes and wordplay.

Readers who know Jarry only from Ubu or his novels may be surprised that he wrote operettas, but his are fully Jarryesque, with his usual gusto for smutty jokes, legend, folklore, puns, wild invention, and popular theater. In his hands, Pope Joan becomes Jane, who runs off with her lover and disguises herself as pope. How will she pass inspection on the slotted chair? What will she do when her husband shows up? And has there ever been another production number celebrating the spiritual virtues of enemas?

This is the first translation of this major work! I also provide an introduction and notes, and scrupulously rendered all of Jarry’s rhyming verse into rhyming verse. Available from Amazon or Black Scat Books.