Chess has appealed to philosophers over the decades. It was a favourite analogy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, and has also been used by Ryle and others. Given the depth and colourful symbolism of the game, it is probably not surprising that people have used and abused the name and image of chess in pursuit of various claims.
Chess IS life.
Like the theatre. Let us review some of the major outposts of chess philosophy. Chess is not an entirely separate part of life. If I understand him right, this is Arrabal's point. Chess may even provide unusually clear examples of these various aspects of life, because chess is an arena in which the tasks are entirely mental, where complete information is available to both players, and their moves can be recorded accurately.