The Automobile Graveyard and The Two Executioners: Two Plays by Arrabal

by Fernando Arrabal

Genres: Plays

94 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

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

[Matthieu · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first play is a strange Beckett/Stoppard hodgepodge—kind of interesting, kind of pointless. A parody of the Passion. Emanu = Jesus; Topé = Judas; Lasca/Tiossido = Pilate (???); Dilla = Μαρία ἡ Μαγδαληνή (I kept picturing/thinking about J Dilla, but w/e...). The cross is a bicycle. Cool. Didn't Jarry already do that, though? I dunno. It took me over a year to finish this play. Not sure I grokked Arrabal's strange fascination with urine and calisthenics. Women are victims/whores! Jazz musicians are saints! I don't know, I just don't know.

The Two Executioners was much better. The theatrical equivalent to Baal Babylon. Early(ish?) absurdist nightmare. Arrabal must really hate his mother. Was this supposed to be a tragicomedy?

Another solid effort by Fernando "Three Star" Arrabal.

[Jack Rousseau · Rating 4 out of 5]

TOPÉ. We ought to try another profession - a better paid one.
EMANOU. I've already thought of that.
TOPÉ. And?
EMANOU. We could be burglars.
TOPÉ. Burglars?
EMANOU. Yes.
TOPÉ (surprised and pleased). No?
EMANOU. If we were, we'd have lots of money.
TOPÉ. Good Lord, so we would.
EMANOU. And we'd be important people.
TOPÉ (suddenly). And could we be murderers too?
EMANOU. Why not?
TOPÉ (looking pleased). They'd talk about us in the papers.
EMANOU. Of course they would.
TOPÉ. But it would't be easy for us to be burglars.
EMANOU. No, but we can try.

- The Car Cemetery

* * *

It is dark. The two executioners are alone, sitting on the chairs. There is an insistent knock at the street door. It really looks as if the executioners can't hear anything. The door opens slowly, not without creaking. A woman's head appears. The woman inspects the room. She decides to come in and goes up to the executioners.
FRANÇOISE. Good morning gentlemen.... Excuse me.... Am I disturbing you?
The executioners remain motionless, as if it was nothing to do with them.
If I'm disturbing you I'll go away....
Silence. It looks as if the woman is trying to pluck up courage. Finally she brings herself to speak and the words come tumbling out.
I came to see you because I can't stand it any longer. It's about my husband. (Pathetically.) The being in whom I placed all my hopes, the man to whom I gave the best years of my lfie and whom I loved as I would never have thought I could love. (Speaking more softly, calmer.) Yes, yes, yes, he is guilty.
Suddenly the executioners take an interest in what the woman is saying. One of them takes out a pencil and notebook.
Yes, he's guilty. He lives at No. 8 rue du Travail, and his name is Jean Lagune.
[...]

- The Two Executioners, Melodrama in One Act