And They Put Handcuffs On the Flowers

by Fernando Arrabal, Charles Marowitz (Translator)

English, French (translation)

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Spanish Literature

87 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Fernando Arrabal Terán (born August 11, 1932 in Melilla, Spain) is a Spanish playwright, screenwriter, film director, novelist and poet. He settled in France in 1955, he describes himself as “desterrado,” or “half-expatriate, half-exiled.”

Arrabal has directed seven full-length feature films; he has published over 100 plays, 14 novels, 800 poetry collections, chapbooks, and artist’s books; several essays, and his notorious “Letter to General Franco” during the dictator’s lifetime. His complete plays have been published in a number of languages, in a two-volume edition totaling over two thousand pages. The New York Times theatre critic Mel Gussow has called Arrabal the last survivor among the “three avatars of modernism.”

In 1962 Arrabal co-founded the Panic Movement with Alejandro Jodorowsky and Roland Topor, inspired by the god Pan, and was elected Transcendent Satrap of the Collège de Pataphysique in 1990. Forty other Transcendent Satraps have been elected over the past half-century, including Marcel Duchamp, Eugène Ionesco, Man Ray, Boris Vian, Dario Fo, Umberto Eco and Jean Baudrillard.

Reviews

[Alyse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not for the faint of heart, or stomach. Translated from it's original Spanish text, it deals with subjects such as: War, prison, injustice, passion, denial of contact with those you love, loss, and sex. It basically covers it all.

I think this play could be done either really well or really poorly. It all depends on the vision of the director. Do you take everything literally, or are you willing to take a risk and do something more non-conventional.

Not that there is ANYTHING conventional about this play.

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah, I really shouldn't like Arrabal, this play being an excellent example of that. Full of shit-eating and pee-drinking and farting and blowjobbing and sodomizing and bullshit surreal dialogue -- not to mention it's the sort of avant garde play one can scarcely imagine by only reading it. Yet I found a lot of brilliant, despite all the scatological vulgarity. It wasn't purposeless. It was meant to shock, of course, but not uselessly, not for the sole purpose of being edgy.

[ada☆ﾟ⁠.⁠*⁠･⁠｡ﾟ · Rating 5 out of 5]

el país está cloroformado: uno de los crímenes de la tiranía es obligar al talento a degradarse

¿cómo es posible, hombre, que en la época en que el hombre pisa la luna y va a lanzarse pronto a las galaxias más lejanas, haya hombres que no vean el horizonte?

esto ha sido una bestialidad...qué rabia que cuando busques la obra tengas que hacerlo en inglés para que salga. agradecida por siempre de poder hacer un tfg que me esté revelando tantas joyas literarias olvidadas. es una preciosidad y fernando arrabal debería tener un programa en prime time en el que nos cuente sus movidas.

las ruinas no nos dan miedo...vamos a heredar la tierra...llevamos dentro de nosotros un mundo nuevo y ese mundo, que está en nuestros corazones, se agiganta cada minuto que pasa

¿no te parece que hay auroras inventadas que nos rodean y nos besan? eres mi finito cierto y yo quisiera ser tu sueñecito caliente junto a tu pecho💕

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Amiel: People today find prison an acceptable punishment . . . but they’d be horrified if someone started putting criminals’ eyes out . . . even though there’d be less suffering.”

This play does not shy way from just about anything, and that makes it unexpectedly honest, as wild as it is at face value. Arrabal sure saw things differently than many.

[Alyson · Rating 3 out of 5]

"It's a simple love story." I've got to admit, I've had to change my review after my professor's lecture today over Arrabal. I will never look at the text or the playwright the same ever again. I have a newfound respect for Arrabal.

[Tommy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy shit.