Analysis of ‘In the Burning Darkness’ by Antonio Buero Vallejo
Biography
Born in Guadalajara in 1916, Antonio Buero Vallejo moved to Madrid at 34 and entered the School of Fine Arts of San Fernando. He maintained an interest in painting, but dedicated himself to readings and attending the theater. Although he did not participate in party campaigning, his interest in politics heightened, and he felt close to Marxism. During the war, his father was arrested and shot in 1936.
Buero Vallejo was arrested at 39 and sentenced to death in a summary trial, along with others, for joining the rebellion. The death sentence was held for eight months and finally changed to a penalty of 30 years. He went through several prisons, where he did portraits. After leaving the Ocaña criminal prison on parole, he was banished from Madrid in 1946, so he resided in Carabanchel Bajo, but spent most of the day in Madrid. He became a member of the Athenaeum and published some pictures in magazines to raise revenue, but his pictorial hobby began to wane in favor of writing. He reflected his feelings in narratives of his past years in prison, but soon shifted to the theater. The theme of blindness is the core argument of his first drama, In the Burning Darkness.
Story and Structure of ‘In the Burning Darkness’
The play begins in medias res, meaning the plot begins late in the argument, almost 30 years after the events that triggered the current situation. This allows the play to delve into the past and subject it to inquiry, revealing who has been victimized and who must expiate guilt.
Buero Vallejo performed a new experiment, new in form, though not in content or meaning. He introduced two characters from a future time, placing them in our present (the second half of the twentieth century), charging dramatically some unique figures who live a unique conflict. The audience is invited by the conductors of this experiment to be located both outside and inside the dialectical conflict.
- Outside: The audience is associated, under the stage game, with the two researchers conducting the experiment.
- Inside: The audience is associated, by virtue of its historical identity, with the subjects of the experiment and conflict.
Thus, we are at once pure viewers and impure subjects of a drama. We see the drama from a transcendent point of view, ideally situated beyond its limits, and we act in it, not yet having transcended the boundaries. The tragedy that we have seen with this dual role of subject and audience is focused on a family structured as a triangle outside the drama. The vertex is the father figure, and the opposing forces are the children.
The father is insane and does not recognize any member of the family, always asking who they are. The family lives in a basement, marginalized in the world emerged from a war that made them its victims. Communication with the world passes through and only allows passersby to see or hear them. The skylight is the fourth wall, the unseen through which we see the show and are seen by the characters. We see how the events of the past will influence the outcome.
The work is structured in two parts, each divided into three frames (blocks of scenes). All tables have an initial intervention of the researchers, who also close the last frame of each party. In their early interventions, the researchers refer to the experiment, inviting visitors to see, and providing a framework of history.