This article argues for a reconsideration of the genealogy of twentieth-century European epic theatre, discussing the inaugural 1896 production of Alfred Jarry's Ubu the King as a dramaturgical strategy which anticipates key elements that subsequently emerged in the theatres of Bertolt Brecht and Dario Fo. It will be argued that Jarry's practice reintroduces residual cultural elements to the European stage, relating to interventionist performance traditions of the mask, towards a dramaturgy that opposes the innate conservatism of the 1890s French avant-garde and the dominant genres of the western theatrical tradition. It will be argued that the mask strategies which Jarry deploys in Ubu the King, which contest rather than respect the codifications of genre, are a foundational element in subsequent developments in epic dramaturgy.