Abstract
"My THEATRE IS NOT SURREALIST and is not only realist," declares Fernando Arrabal; "it is realist including the nightmare." Le theatre panique is the term he prefers for it-the theater of panic-playfully suggesting that Pan is the real muse or deity of the theater and seriously reiterating the Artaudian concept that panic should be one of the primary emotions evoked in an audience. No one would deny that there are elements of realism, perhaps even of naturalism, in Arrabal's plays. In fact, it is these very elements, and the recognition they elicit, that give to his work that Kafkaesque or nightmarish quality for which it is partly known. In Guernica~ for example, his play inspired by the Picasso canvas of the same title, such realistic touches as the old woman's being caught in the water closet, the rubble continuing to cascade about the characters, and the simple, earthy dialogue about urination and erection contribute immeasurably to the audience's unconscious realisation that Fanchou and Lira are real people who suffer privately and personally from the larger, public gestures of war and oppression.
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