Antonio Buero Vallejo: Life, Works, and Thematic Analysis
Antonio Buero Vallejo: Biographical Data
Born in Guadalajara in 1916. He moved to Madrid to study fine arts, but the Civil War interrupted his studies. He joined the Republican front. He was jailed and condemned to death but was released in 1949. He changed his artistic vocation and in the same year, he published literature. In “A History of a Staircase,” he received the Lope de Vega Award. In 1986, he was awarded the Cervantes Award.
His Work Stages
1) Structuralist Stage
This stage constitutes the first series of works, where the central theme is contemporary reality. The action develops in a single space and real-time. Instead of a concrete scenic space, the events succeed in chronological order. He introduces innovative elements such as the search for original and unusual settings, like a rooftop stage. Works from this stage include “A History of a Staircase,” “The Burning Darkness,” and “Today’s a Holiday.”
2) Historical Reflection Stage
The first series of works in this stage are historical, used to reflect on the present. This allowed him to circumvent censorship and reach the public. This resource, used by many authors, is called possibilism. The works of this stage are structured from tables that succeed within the same act; discontinuity is given way, and the action is placed in abstract settings. In these scenic spaces, Spain addresses the theme of unjust destiny. Works belonging to this stage are “A Town Dreamer,” “The Maids,” and “Ovid.” At the end of this phase, he publishes books like “History of a Double Skylight.” In “Doctor Valmy” and “Intermediate Characters,” he introduces the effect of the public as narrators who interrupt the act and comment on the events on stage.
3) Third Stage
This stage uses a subjective point of view. The action reaches the spectator through the subjective vision of one of the characters, whether physical or psychological. The spectator does not see reality, but what the protagonist experiences. Important works are “The Dream of Reason,” “The Arrival of the Gods,” “The Detonation,” and “The Foundation.”
From 1977, with “The Detonation,” Buero began to show some thematic wear, which does not detract from the author being the first great figure of Spanish theater. He stated that tragedy was his preferred genre, through which he expressed a coherent world vision of the human being. His theater is founded on the need for truth, freedom, and hope. His works, although bitter and dark, transmit salvation. Established: It belongs to the 3rd stage where the author reaches the spectator through the vision of one of the characters, whether physical or psychological. Therefore, we do not remember the spectator but the vision of reality that the protagonist has. Although his work has a supratemporal character, to fully understand it, it is necessary to go back to January 1974 and the last years after Franco’s death. It is important to consider that Buero Vallejo achieved his technical and structural approaches with very innovative works on the Spanish stage.
Thematically
The work presents the following points:
- The Search for Truth: Buero wants to unmask lies, especially when they come from structures that, through terror and oppression, prevent living in truth. Falsehood can appear more beautiful. The recognition of the truth changes the characters’ attitudes and genuinely signals the meaning of the work: we must put aside the false expressions to understand that “wherever you go, the prison is there”; but we must also show the need for discovery, not just the act of dislocating.
- Freedom: The search for truth complicates the search for freedom. The person depends on reality and it conditions their actions to the point that they cannot be responsible for their acts. To be a traitor under torture, for example, is not the same as a free response.
- Madness: Madness or mental disturbance are limitations that prevent a person from living in reality. It is a refuge when one cannot face reality. The true limitation is the human condition. The heroic path is to move from a comfortable room to the dark cell of the prison.
- Denunciation of Social and Political Injustice: It takes on a supraspatial and supratemporal value. We remember, as we said initially, the moment of its premiere in 1974, the last stage of Francoism, where any dissent was dissolved with force.
- The Force of Love and Friendship: It pushes the human being to seek freedom, to prefer truth over deception, to help others, and to overcome the adverse reality.
From a structural point of view, the work can be considered a fable in two parts, and each part is subdivided into two scenes. The meaning of this division is to offer the process of vision that the protagonist suffers.
Schematically, we can establish two processes in the work: 1) the process from the foundation to the prison: overcoming the mental alienation; 2) the process from the prison to freedom: when the protagonist discovers the truth. The argumentative scheme is complicated: the escape plan, the traitor is discovered, and the protagonist is transferred to punishment cells. This process is interrupted with an open ending: we do not know if he dies in prison or leaves the prison. We should also refer to the circular structure of the work, since the drama begins with music and terms from Rossini’s idyllic landscape, and ends with a reflection on new possibilities.
Technically
“The Foundation” has a careful construction. There are many author’s notes that not only help the staging but also serve the spectator or reader to see the series of final changes. The work pursues that the spectator is the protagonist, returning to live the idyllic foundation from the beginning to the cruel world of prison, torture, violence, and betrayal with death. Buero uses “immersion effects” with formal resources and scenic manipulations. The spectator is the protagonist, and the same goes for the slowness of the protagonist’s story. We are on the line of the most advanced currents of contemporary history, overcoming narrative objectivity. The immersion effect used by Buero in this work makes all the spectators participate in this alienation, universalizing it. These effects suggest a definition of the world as something unequivocal.