Zepo and Zapo, the central characters in Fernando Arrabel’s Picnic on the Battlefield, are combatants, antagonists whose battleground encompasses a “no man’s land.” Used by the playwright to point out the absurdity of war, they are cast in a drama in which it is viewed as a game – a very boring game. Emphasizing the absurdity of the game is the realization that neither Zepo nor Zapo fights from any conviction of patriotic duty. Into this arena come Mr. and Mrs. Tapan, a couple intent on having a picnic, who invites the two warriors to join them.
Via that picnic Arrabel offers up the ultimate absurdity of war, that war erodes morals, warps and twists our ethics, allowing caring and compassionate folk, who in peacetime would not harm anyone, to consent to and support the annihilation of people and property in wartime.
Hostilities are suspended in the play; the scene becomes as tranquil as a Sunday picnic. No longer pawns in a vicious and violent game of conflict, Zepo and Zapo emerge as human beings engaged in a mutual fellowship of sharing (not only of a meal, but of themselves). Controlled emotions become restrained, directed, protracted feelings. Banal hatred cedes to respect and reverence for life and the living. Resolving to suspend hostilities, Zepo and Zapo inform their "Battle Buddies" that, as neither side desires to continue this confrontation, they should replace conflict with communication and caring.
Reality, however, is thrust upon us with the resumption of hostilities - and the deaths of everyone involved in the battlefield picnic. Herein is found Arrabel's greatest truth: fellowship, respect, reverence and value must be universal in its scale and scope if it is to become a reality. The picnickers were killed by one who was not invited to the picnic, exclusion “leaving them no choice” but to extend and expand the absurdity.
In their willingness to respond to each other on a human level, to view others as "The Imagio Dei" ("The Image of God"),Zepo, Zapo and the Tapans are symbols of health, hope and healing in the midst of absurdity.
In the final analysis, war is our inability to see that image in the other. When Ramsey MacDonald was Prime Minister of England, a friend said to him, "The desire for peace will not insure it."
"I know that is right," said MacDonald, "Neither does the desire for a meal satisfy your hunger, but it does start you moving toward a restaurant."
We have believed, for far too long, the Aesopian Fable that "familiarity breeds contempt." Could it be that Arrabel is trying to teach us that familiarity breeds understanding, understanding breeds fellowship and community, fellowship and community breed reverence and respect and reverence and respect metamorphose battlefields into picnics?
