| Sumario: | A comparison of The Tree Climber with other plays by Tawfīq al-akīm (1898-1987) tends to challenge claims that it is a pivotal text in the author's literary career, and an emblem of Absurdism. Tawfīq al-akīm himself associates his play with a form of 'intellectual popular irrealism' or 'irrational theater', which three distinct elements of his work come to confirm: a) the recurrence of the juxtaposition of two animated short scenes, distinct in both Time and Space; b) the invariability of his philosophical and political message throughout his work; c) the unending fight against spatio-temporal Determinism, coupled with the repeated affirmation of the relativity of the perception of Time and Space.
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