SOURCE: “Dictatorship to Democracy in the Recent Theater of Buero Vallejo (La Fundación to Diáalogo secreto),” in Estreno, Vol. XIII, No. 2, Fall, 1987, pp. 9–15.

[In the following essay, Halsey analyzes how Buero Vallejo portrays Spain's transition from dictatorship to democracy in his plays written in the 1970s and 1980s.]

Ricardo Doménech has demonstrated that Buero's entire theater up to 1971 constitutes a meditation on Spain.¹ In spite of censorship and other restraints imposed by a triumphant and exclusionist Francoist culture that dominated the national scene for some forty years, Buero succeeded in exposing the dark recesses, the hidden reality of Spanish life. Therefore it is hardly surprising that Buero's dramas of the late 1970s and early 1980s deal with the problems of the nation's difficult transition from dictatorship to democracy. As a leftist writer who considers the theater not only a means of reflecting society but of transforming it, he has always found political ideology and action very appealing topics. Now, however, these themes move closer to the forefront and are dealt with much more explicitly.

In La Fundación (1974) Buero suggests that to achieve true freedom it is necessary to pass through a series of concentric prisons. It is obvious that, even before Franco's death, he is thinking ahead to the future transition as he underscores the importance of each small step or gain, no matter how seemingly illusory or provisional.

The “Foundation” or elegant research center seen by Tomás, a young political prisoner who suffers from a schizophrenic delusion, is really a prison. From the beginning of the drama, the set represents what Tomás sees—pleasantly furnished quarters and a sparkling landscape whose rainbow-hued light floods the room. Since the spectators are led to identify with him, they too become victims of a delusion. However, when they share also in his gradual return to lucidity, they obtain a clearer understanding of their own situation. Buero's message to the Spanish viewer of 1974 is clear. Tomás' “Foundation” is an image of Franco Spain seen through the eyes of estrangement. In Tomás' rejection of reality, the spectators are to confront their own refusal to see the reality of their own world. When Tomás' fictitious “Foundation” crumbles and reality emerges, they are to see Spain for what it is in 1974 and has been for some thirty-five years. In an interview, Buero speaks of “el pesimismo de salir para llegar a creer que la cárcel es una ‘Fundación’ … y la esperanza—¡incluso el optimismo!—de salir para comprender, y advertir a los demás, que la ‘Fundación’ es otra cárcel. Cuando eso es advierte, cuando se logra comunicar, las rejas se corren, la humana liberación empieza a ser realmente posible.”²

As a dramatist desirous of a clean break with the past, Buero renders a judgment upon Franco Spain, as well as other authoritarian systems that deceive and oppress—upon the “Foundations” of the world and their ideology. However he also suggests the politics necessary to transform Spain, to create a society as beautiful as the luminous Turner landscape Tomás believed he saw beyond a picture window. Buero clearly expresses hope for the future as Asel, the most mature prisoner and a clear author surrogate, tells Tomás: “Nunca olvides lo que voy a decirte. Has soñado muchas puerilidades, pero el paisaje que veías … es verdadero” (p. 240). The prison vanquishes the imaginary “Foundation”; but the ideal represented by the imaginary landscape remains. However, ideals must be put into action. Asel explains that the world outside is still another prison and that the struggle for freedom is a continuous process: “Cuando has estado en la cárcel acabas por comprender que, vayas donde vayas, estás en la cárcel. [ … ] ¡Entonces hay que salir a la otra cárcel! (Pausa). ¡Y cuando estés en ella, salir a otra, y de ésta, a otra!”³

When Tomás questions the wisdom of attempting to escape only to encounter a freedom as illusory and deceptive as his “Foundation,” Asel responds: “Duda cuanto quieras, pero no dejes de actuar. No podemos despreciar las pequeñas libertades engañosas que anhelamos aunque nos conduzcan a otra prisión … Volveremos siempre a tu Fundación, o a la de fuera, si las menospreciamos. Y continuarán los dolores, las matanzas” (p. 240). Fears, Buero suggests, must not paralyze Spaniards and no progress, however limited, can be disdained in the transition to democracy. He underscores the importance of each step, each concession won from an authoritarian regime as Spaniards begin to move toward the liberated society he believes possible.

La detonación (1977), Buero's first drama written and staged in post-Franco Spain, shows parallels between the times of José Mariano de Larra and the late 1970s. Since the last years of Ferdinand VII and the regency of María Cristina were a time of transition from authoritarianism to a liberal monarchy, the drama constitutes a valid mirror for the viewer of 1977. Both periods are times of political instability, ideological confusion, and changes that are only surface deep. “Vista de cerca la situación que estamos viviendo”, Buero stated in 1979, “presenta aún deficiencias de democratización y liberalización tan grandes que su parecido con la época postabsolutista vivida por Larra es notable.”⁴

An extended flashback permits the spectators to experience events of the ten years preceding Larra's suicide in 1837, to share with the tormented protagonist the actions, thoughts, and even dreams that he not only re-enacts but witnesses. The tragedy, which begins as Larra is seen holding the pistol to his head, takes the form of a phantasmagoric delirium. The audience is forced to share this delirium just as it shares Tomás' delusion in La Fundación. The nightmarish quality of the delirium is accentuated by a vertiginously frantic rhythm that accelerates as the end approaches, thus communicating the accumulation of events that crushed Larra's spirit.

Buero's Larra evinces the dramatist's own passion for truth in a time of falsehood and deception. The falsehood Larra sees is represented by masks worn by politicians and writers, masks that fall as Larra exposes the truth behind each of them. Of all his protagonists, Larra, who succeeds in fulfilling his mission as a critic of Spanish society in a time of absolutism and censorship, is the one with whom Buero most closely identifies. In the dialogue Buero intercalates relevant passages from Larra's political essays, although more often it is the spirit, rather than the letter, of the satirist that he communicates. Larra quotes himself and his disembodied voice provides still further commentary, the lucidity of which contrasts sharply to the delirium of his nightmare. This commentary constitutes a significant message and a warning.

Larra's attacks upon Absolutists who parade as Liberals when change is in the wind is as relevant to the late 1970s as to the 1830s. Indeed, Mesonero Romanos states that the best-known secret in Madrid is that the Liberals do not exist. Moreover, the words used by Larra to characterize Spain under Cea Bermúdez' ministry that Buero utilizes in his play could just as well refer to the situation in 1977: “‘Es decir, que más parece que se columpia, sin moverse de un sitio, que no que anda.’”⁵ Larra's attacks upon Martínez de la Rosa evince a controversy over reform versus authentic ruptura that finds its parallel in the very similar polemic during the initial transition governments of Arias and Suárez. The satirist mocks Martínez de la Rosa's 1834 Estatuto Real. Fearful of Absolutist reaction, on the one hand, and of anarchy, on the other, the Liberal minister compromised, limiting suffrage and adding an upper chamber to the Cortes. His politics of moderation—with its emphasis on order, the continuity in power of cabinet members who had served under Ferdinand, and reforms that were purely administrative—is not unlike the politics of the early post-Franco transition. Moreover, Larra's charge that the Liberals' refusal to recognize the fueros of the Basques prolonged the Carlist War, in which the latter, along with the clergy, supported the pretender, has special significance in 1977, when the problem of regional autonomy remains unsolved. Moreover, Larra points out that it is precisely the Liberals' failure to curb Carlism that led to the street violence and massacre of friars by mobs resentful of the government's impotence. In the words of Larra, Buero thus warns against unfounded fears and half-way measures that paralyze a nation, thwarting true progress.

The Moderados betrayed the hope for change; the Exaltados, the other Liberal party, were no different. The latter's limitation of suffrage to the wealthy and the disentailment of church properties in a way that put these lands in the hands of the highest bidders rather than the peasants under the minister Mendizábal, a wealthy financier, are indignantly denounced by Larra as betrayals of the common people. His words about the necessity for economic justice and for interesting the masses in the political process are as relevant during the present transition as then. Moreover, Larra unmasks the opportunism of Mendizábal and Istúriz—representatives of the mercantile interests of two different sectors of the middle class—that prevented them from working together to benefit the common people. The Exaltados or Progresistas succeeded only in creating a new system of injustices, “otra sustanciosa etapa de privilegios” (p. 151). Then as in the initial transition period of the 1970s, ministers alternated but nothing changed. Significantly all of the ministers are played by the same actor behind their different masks.

Larra's disillusionment leads him, together with other dissident Progresistas, to support Istúriz and to run for election to the Cortes—a decision that represents the sort of posibilismo Buero defends in La Fundación.⁶ Of course the uprising of the sergeants of the queen's guard at La Granja prevents the satirist from occupying the seat he wins. Moreover, Larra, who has supported a more advanced constitution for 1836 than for 1812, is branded a Moderate. As the flashback draws to its conclusion, Buero underscores Larra's desolation at seeing freedom betrayed from both right and left, Liberals divided by a deepening abyss, and his own political ambitions frustrated. Spain is but a mascarade of Absolutist-Liberal governments characterized by the same corruption, egoism, and—above all—hypocrisy. “‘El mundo todo es máscaras: todo el año es carnaval,’” states Larra near the end, quoting words as applicable to 1977 as to the 1830s. One reviewer states: “Este es el pesimismo radical de Buero, coincidente con el de Larra. [ … ] El espejo es claro: hombres y gobiernos se suceden, para que nada cambie. Frase: ‘Los liberales no existen. Todos son absolutistas cuando llegan al poder.’ Sólo el pueblo permanece inalterable victima.”⁷

It is this tragedy that results in Larra's suicide. The silent shot that plunges the stage into darkness is followed by a brief epilogue in which Larra's servant Pedro, who represents the voice of history, comments upon the futility of his master's suicide and the need for endless perseverance: It is Pedro, symbol of the common people, who will some day, as the real protagonist of Spain's history, resolve what Larra has denounced. Freedom succumbed in Larra's time. In La detonación, Buero expresses his hope that history will not be repeated as Spain commences the transition of the late 1970s. His drama represents “una súplica … para que se llegue a una vida democrática sin que suenen nuevas detonaciones.”⁸

In La detonación Buero portrays Liberals who become Absolutists when they attain power; in Jueces en la noche (1979), a drama dealing directly with the transition, he depicts Absolutists who pretend to be Liberals in order to attain power. Jueces analyzes the reality—every bit as phantasmagoric as in Larra's time—behind the facade of the initial transition period. Buero's purpose is to “machacar [ … ] las conciencias de un país engañado y que se dejaba engañar.”⁹

Jueces is the drama of a tránsfuga, Juan Luis Palacios, a former cabinet member under Franco who now serves as a diputado representing the centrist party in power. Although he has seemingly embraced democratic change and broken with the past, his true sentiments are probably those he expresses when he states: “Ahora todos tenemos que jugar esta partida miserable de la democracia, pero con la esperanza de recobrar un día la España verdadera. Y si para ello hay que llegar a la violencia, Dios nos perdonará.”¹⁰ When surprise is expressed at such words from one whose public image is that of a Liberal, the diputado's reply is especially revealing: “Hemos tenido que descubrir esta amarga verdad; cuando la libertad es mayor hay que ser más hipócritas” (p. 72).

In La detonación successive ministers wear a series of different masks that conceal an identical ideological posture. In Jueces, one politician dons different masks as the times change although his ideas remain basically the same. Moreover, in both dramas, party interests conceal desire for personal financial gain and political power. During the first years of Spain's evolution toward democracy, Fascism remains in power because key political roles are played by the same figures as before. Jueces reflects the pessimism of Spain's Left when the possibility of a democratic break with the past is thwarted by such politicians as Juan Luis who, although he mascarades as a Liberal when it is to his advantage, has yet to be really convinced of the virtues of democracy.

As the drama begins, Juan Luis faces the dilemma of whether to do his duty and denounce a terrorist plan to assassinate an important general for the purpose of provoking a military coup or remain silent to avoid having certain facts that would destroy his marriage come to light. He finally allows himself to be blackmailed; his wife, however, learns the truth about their marriage through other means and assumes her place among the victims that become Juan Luis' judges.

Jueces chronicles political problems which would have been difficult to treat earlier as directly as Buero does in the present play: the wave of terrorist activity, the possibility of a military coup, the danger of a return to Francoism, the activities of policías paralelas, the attitude of the army, etc. That the purpose of the rumored atentado is to discredit the Left will become obvious with the involvement of the ex-policeman who blackmails Juan Luis. The latter, himself, explains: “algo que parezca ejecutado por revolucionarios, y que acaso lo lleven a cabo verdaderos fanáticos de la extrema izquieda …, porque en sus organizaciones hayan sabido infiltrarse hábiles agentes” (p. 74). Buero thus suggests that the terrorism of the late 1970s and early 1980s is, to some extent at least, a continuation of the official, legally-sanctioned terror unleashed by the Franco regime, master-minded by the extreme Right and carried out with the complicity of politicians of the center, like Juan Luis, who remains silent.¹¹ Its purpose is to destroy Spain's new democracy before it can be stabilized.

Like many Buero plays, Jueces constitutes a judgment. In this case the judgment is the protagonist's own. Juan Luis' fears that the ex-policeman will reveal his sordid past precipitate a crisis in which the diputado's victims—both past and present—summoned by his subconscious and converted into his judges, materialize in a series of four nightmares. These nightmares, like the delusion of La Fundación and the flashback of La detonación, permit the audience to enter the mind of the protagonist.¹² In this “Misterio profano”—as Buero subtitles his drama—the phantoms or ghosts of the diputado's past that return to torment him assume the form of mysterious musicians of a string trio to play at his forthcoming twentieth wedding anniversary celebration. As will gradually become clear, they are his judges: the first, his wife's ex-fiancé, a young medical student who died in prison some years ago; the second, a political prisoner for whose execution Juan Luis voted; and the third, his wife, Julia. That the diputado already intuits his wife's place is with his victims is suggested by the empty chair with the abandoned viola, the notes of which sound together with those of the other two instruments during the three dreams that precede her suicide, as well as by the music of Julia's favorite piece, the joyous March from Beethoven's “Trio Serenade in D Major, Opus 8.”

Juan Luis' first two dreams deal with his wife's former fiancé. Fermín. In the initial dream, the musicians introduce a re-enactment of the diputado's deception of Julia some twenty years earlier, as the latter tricks her into believing that, under police torture, Fermín has falsely implicated her in illegal political activities. Then, with the aid of his ex-policeman friend, Ginés Pardo, he pretends to save her from arrest. Julia's loss of faith in Fermín and her marriage to Juan Luis occurred shortly thereafter. The second dream recalls Fermín's death as a result of being beaten by prison guards. However, the second dream not only evokes past events for which the diputado experiences guilt but anticipates the future as he sees himself forced to personally execute the general who will be the victim of the atentado—just as Larra, in his delirium, imagines himself obliged to fire on death squads on both sides in the Carlist conflict. The third dream introduces the story of Juan Luis' second victim, Elidio González, executed with the ex-minister's approval for alleged plans for sabotage and assassinations as well as unproved crimes during the Civil War some three decades earlier—even though those guilty of the greatest atrocities against the Loyalists were pardoned.¹³ “Durante años y años,” recalls the Cellist, “dos varas de medir” (p. 126).

The dream sequence constitutes a trial not only of the diputado but of an entire generation of Spaniards for their conduct during the Franco years. This trial is strongly reminiscent of that of Vicente in the earlier El tragaluz. In Jueces Buero suggests that Spaniards like Juan Luis must put behind them the Civil War of their childhood. “Creemos, como tú,” the Violinist tells the latter, “que hay que dejarla atrás” (p. 127). However, events of the following decades must be confronted and responsibility acknowledged. “A esos años sí hay que juzgarlos,” states the Violinist, “Y a los que en ellos se hicieron hombres” (p. 127).

To Juan Luis' first defense, that although he has committed errors, he has also created wealth and prosperity for his country, the Violinist responds by reminding him of his money in foreign banks. To the second defense, that he believes in democracy and will work to save it, the Violinist reacts by asking if he will notify the police of the atentado. Juan Luis shows himself unable to leave his past behind him. By the time the final dream begins the question posed by the Violinist has been answered. There remains only for the verdict to be delivered. Despite his remorse, Juan Luis is judged unfit to help build a democratic Spain because he has proved himself unable to break with the old one. This judgment obviously extends to all those Spaniards who, through their silence and passivity, stand in the way of progress toward democracy.

The dream ends as a radiant Julia enters to pick up the viola and bow and join the violinist in the trio as it begins the euphoric Beethoven March, the hymn to hope that Fermín has taught Julia to love. For Juan Luis her suicide thus represents the definitive victory of the rival he tried to destroy.

Jueces provides a microcosm of post-Franco Spain. The characters exemplify the forces or institutions playing key roles in the transition.¹⁴ Although the diputado has, like so many politicians, moved to the left within his party,¹⁵ he is more concerned with personal power and profit than with ideology. That his behavior has not changed is evinced by the favors that win his position with the multinational, Indelecsa. However, Buero does not present him as a totally negative figure, but, rather, a man of anguish, contradictions and doubts. It is precisely the problem of guilt and responsibility that gives Jueces—like La Fundación and La detonación—a universal dimension, as the protagonist attempts to come to grips with the voice or voices of his conscience.

Ginés Pardo, the ex-policeman who left the force to devote himself to “actividades paralelas,” is the professional agent provocateur responsible for various terrorist activities. Significantly enough he remarks that his former companions on the force are never very efficient in investigating such crimes because some of them do not want to be. The identity of the sinister forces—whether Spanish or international in origin—that Ginés represents is never revealed, although it is implied, of course, that they are Fascist. Buero treats the problem of Spain without masks of any kind. Nevertheless, he states that in Jueces “hay problemas [ … ] en que yo no puedo ni quiero ir más lejos, porque yo no tengo las claves de ellos. [ … ] Yo no puedo llegar más que adonde llego, presentando un problema, eso sí, muy real.”¹⁶ Don Jorge of Indelesca, which Juan Luis has defended in the Cortes, represents economic interests whose close ties to politics become clear when the latter consults him about the advisability of a move further left. Padre Anselmo, who supported Franco's cause, has changed to the extent that he would not now advise the execution of a political prisoner like Eladio González. Nevertheless, his failure to counsel Juan Luis to report the atentado reveals the same inner contradictions and inability to break with the past that characterize the latter.

Cristina, Fermín's companion in resistance during the dictatorship, represents the leftist activist who has remained faithful to her ideals. Just as Buero shows the humanity of his diputado, he points out the failings of the Left as Cristina speaks of “Impaciencia, oportunismo, sectarismo … Inmadurez, en suma, que ya cuidó muy bien el antiguo régimen de fomentar” (p. 56). Obviously Buero's purpose in Jueces is not to present a folletín of stereotypes that perpetuate the concept of a divided Spain. It is rather to underscore the continuing responsibility of all Spaniards. Speaking of the war and post-war period, the Cellist clearly states: “La sangre derramada nos mancha a todos. Entonces y después” (p. 126).

If Jueces constitutes a timely warning of the possibility of a coup (such as the one attempted just months after the play's premiere), Caimán, 1981, shows other important problems of the transition, together with the sense of desencanto typical of the time. The play's opening was attended by so many government ministers and political leaders that F. Umbral wrote: “La apertura del Parlamento, este año, ha tenido lugar en el teatro Reina Victoria. La primera sesión de Cortes ha sido el estreno, la otra noche, de la obra Caimán [ … ] Y no sólo porque en el teatro estuviese toda la clase política [ … ] sino porque la comedia plantea todos los problemas políticos y sociales de la actualidad.”¹⁷

Caimán depicts the problems of 1980 that Néstor, the political activist, enumerates as he speaks of the demonstration he has helped to organize “contra el paro, contra el terrorismo, contra las violaciones, contra las intentonas del fascismo.”¹⁸ All of these problems affect the lives of Néstor's wife, Rosa, and her neighbors in a poor district on the outskirts of Madrid. Rosa, who has become deranged since her young daughter fell through an opening to the sewers in an abandoned building site, believes that this daughter, whose body was never found, lives in an underground water garden similar to the one in a reproduction of the painting from Monet's Water Lilies series that hangs on the apartment wall. She imagines that her daughter, whom she and the audience hear speak in a series of hallucinations, will return to rescue her from the jaws of poverty and injustice that entrap her and her poor neighbors—just as, in an old Indian legend, the son of an ancient chieftain rescues his father unharmed from the jaws of the cayman that has swallowed him. Buero depicts a society that, as one critic states “grita desde la entraña del caimán por la salvación.”¹⁹

Rosa's husband Néstor, who like Asel of La Fundación has spent years in Franco's prisons, works actively for justice. He explains to Rosa that the legend of the cayman is poetry, not reality, that it exalts the impossible. Through Néstor—an author surrogate like Asel—Buero suggests that Spanish society of the transition must escape the cayman's jaws through sustained, collective action. The transformation of Spain into the genuine democracy of which so many have dreamed will come, not through miracles, but through the efforts of those Spaniards themselves who, like Néstor, work to make it possible. Rosa's refusal to face reality, like Tomás of La Fundación, is shown to be a grave error that leads only to failure as she meets her death attempting to join her daughter in the fantastic water garden. In Jueces, Cristina admonishes Julia: “No vale dar la espalda a los problemas que nos acosan” (p. 56); in Caimán, the message is summed up in Néstor's words to Rosa: “Lo primero que todos debemos hacer es afrontar la vida y trabajar” (p. 29).

The narrator, speaking from a future that is close to the end of our century, states that persons like Néstor represent hope: “son la salud y el ánimo frente a la desesperanza y el suicidio” (p. 108). Nevertheless Buero's conviction in Caimán—as in his entire theater—is that action without dreams or ideals is insufficient. As the drama ends, the narrator explains that Rosa's marvelous garden (which is not unlike Tomás' sparkling landscape) represents “otra luminosa fuerza sin la que el caimán tampoco podrá ser definitivamente vencido” (p. 108).

Diálogo secreto (1984), written after two years of Socialist government, presents a vision of Spain even bleaker than Caimán. In Diálogo, as in La detonación and especially Jueces, Buero condemns the falsehood and hypocrisy he finds prevalent in Spanish society. Like the politician of Jueces, who hides his real ideas, mascarading as a Liberal, Fabio of Diálogo, who is a renowned art critic, desperately conceals the fact that he has always been color blind and, thus, lived a lie. This lie is finally discovered by his daughter when a young artist she loves commits suicide after Fabio, who detested him, unjustly attacks his painting. The daughter then threatens to reveal her father's secret to the press. It is Fabio's constant fear of being discredited that occasions a series of “secret” or imaginary dialogues with his father in which he admits the truth that he refuses to acknowledge publicly. These “secret” dialogues thus reveal or make public to the audience the inner torment of the protagonist. “Vivir alerta ha sido mi cárcel,” Fabio confesses in words that might be used also to describe the plight of the protagonist of Jueces, “No soy más que mi pánico. El constante pánico de ser descubierto por todos.”²⁰ The function of the imaginary conversations in this “fantasía”—as the play is subtitled—is thus identical to that of the delusion in La Fundación, the flashback in La detonación, and especially the nightmares in Jueces.

The imaginary dialogues take place before a large reproduction of Veláquez' famous painting, “Las hilianderas,” which is the subject of Fabio's current study or “Diálogo del Arte.” Since the reproduction's brilliant colors turn into lustreless ochre and sepia, gloomy browns and blues, when contemplated by Fabio, Buero forces the spectators to share the latter's limitation. More importantly, Buero utilizes the painting to underscore the universal dimension of this drama of contemporary Spain. Gazing at the figures of Arachne and Pallas Athene in front of the tapestry that the former dares to weave revealing the errors of the gods, Fabio identifies with the maiden, whom the goddess is seen turning into a spider.²¹ Significantly, Fabio declares that this punishment is not for presumption or ambition on Arachne's part but for deceit. In his “Diálogo del Arte” Fabio has Pallas state to Arachne that she is condemned “por mentirosa. Las lacras que les achacas a los dioses no son más que tus propias lacras” (p. 49). Fabio fears that, just as Pallas punishes Arachne, so his daughter will punish him for his lies in his criticism of the works of the painter whom he hated.

Despite his remorse and thoughts of suicide, Fabio, like the protagonist of Jueces, is incapable of confessing the truth. One character tells him: “Tu eres tu mentira. Si prescindes de ella, ¿qué serás?” (p. 117). A complex character as are all of Buero's protagonists, Fabio himself explains that it is not so much his shame that prevents him from revealing the truth as his yearning to attain the impossible. Fabio defines himself as “un amante de los colores que ignoro … Un irrevocable explorador de esa belleza para mí incomprensible que irisa las formas [ … ] El perseguidor de un mundo desconocido sin cuya posesión no puedo vivir” (p. 131). These words obviously recall those of the blind Ignacio of En la ardiente oscuridad and other of Buero's dreamers who struggle against physical limitations that are symbolic. In Buero's drama, Arachne is not condemned for striving to excel in her weaving nor Fabio for attempting to study art in spite of his handicap. Both are condemned for their lies.²²

It is Gaspar, an old dissident who has spent more than twenty-four years in Franco's prisons, who makes clear the social implications of Buero's drama. His words underscore the collective dimension of Fabio's tragedy. Like the words of Asel of La Fundación and Néstor of Caimán, his words also constitute an important message to today's Spaniards, who are called to greater sincerity and authenticity. Gaspar explains to Fabio that deception is the norm in a society that deems it necessary to deceive or be deceived and that disclosure of the truth will not destroy him: “Es la solidaridad en el basurero. Al sinvergüenza le amparan los sinvergüenzas. Sonrisas maliciosas sí, hasta que líes el petate. Pero con un poco de cara, sigues adelante y hasta das conferencias sobre moral. Y te ponen una medalla” (p. 118). In 1981 Buero pictures a society caught in the jaws of the cayman, paralyzed by the problems that threaten it. In 1984 he describes his society in far more pessimistic terms: it is a “basurero.” Gaspar comments on this “basurero,” concluding with a sharp warning: “Está muy organizadito y hasta ha inventado las buenas maneras, pero es un cotarro de daltónicos [ … ] cada uno a su modo … Y entre todos nos está llevando a un pelo de la catástrofe” (p. 119).

Despite the pressures of society, Fabio must accept his share of guilt for he has deceived others, concealing his limitation and, what Gaspar condemns even more strongly, he has worked only for his own benefit, not society's. Buero contrasts Fabio's “solidaridad en el basurero” with Gaspar's ethics of true solidarity—which are also the ethics of Néstor in Caimán.

In Diálogo secreto, hope for the future rests with a new generation of Spaniards. Fabio's daughter Aurora inherits Gaspar's passion for truth—in much the same way as Tomás of La Fundación receives the legacy of Asel. Her name obviously suggests a new beginning, as does her final move from her parents' home. Like the young girl in the background of “Las hilanderas,” whose face is turned toward the viewer—and whom Fabio's wife mentions as the play concludes—Aurora seems to communicate a sense of hope.

Diálogo secreto, like Buero's other most recent plays, thus shows serious problems that still persist in Spain's transition. The plays of the decade 1974 to 1984 doubtlessly reflect the concerns of many Spaniards. In La Fundación the playwright suggests metaphorically the difficulties to be encountered in the transition period. In La detonación and Jueces he warns that violence in the form of civil conflict remains a grave possibility in the late 1970s. He charges, also, in the latter two plays that change is only surface deep and Spain's new democracy a façade. In Caimán the playwright focuses on the concrete problems of the early 1980s that result from this lack of substantive progress. In Diálogo Buero renders his harshest judgment yet, returning to one of his favorite themes: the hypocrisy of Spanish society so strongly condemned in Las Meninas (1960), a play constituting a veiled indictment of Franco Spain. However, Buero's attitude is not one of hopelessness. It is true that the sparkling landscape in which Asel of La Fundación asserts his faith seems far away. Nevertheless, Néstor of Caimán and others like him still work to achieve it, and Gaspar of Diálogo secreto reaffirms this commitment when he states to Aurora: “Es que hay que luchar por lo imposible. Aunque nos quedemos a medio camino” (p. 71). Indeed these latter words express a conviction central to Buero's entire theater.²³

Notes

1. See his El teatro de Buero Vallejo (Madrid: Gredos, 1973).

2. José Monleón, “Entrevista con A. Buero Vallejo,” Primer Acto, No. 167 (1974), p. 13.

3. Buero Vallejo, La Fundación. El Concierto de San Ovidio. (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1974), p. 241. For Buero's reactions to the Spanish society he encountered upon his own release from prison in 1947, see Javier Alfaya, “Antonio Buero Vallejo: En la ardiente lucidez,” La Calle (Madrid: September 25-October 1, 1979, pp. 42–44.

4. “Deslinde e índole de la obra postfranquista de A. Buero Vallejo,” Bulletin de la Societé Belge des Professeurs d'Espagnol, No. 19 (December 1979), p. 4.

5. Buero Vallejo, La detonación. Las palabras en la arena. (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1979), p. 106. This sentence is one of the many statements from Larra's own essays that Buero utilizes in the play.

   For a study of Buero's dramatic technique see Janet W. Díaz, “Buero Vallejo's La detonación,” Estreno 5 No. 1 (1979), pp. 33–35.

6. Istúriz' ministry represented the opportunity for younger men to share in shaping a new modern constitution. C. Alonso states of Larra: “Lo urgente era actuar con eficacia. Y ni a la izquierda ni a la derecha halló programa más aceptable que el de Istúriz.” See “Larra y Espronceda: Dos liberales impacientes,” in Literatura y poder. España 1834–1868 (Madrid; 1971), p. 54.

7. José Antonio Gabriel y Galán, “El enigma de España siempre vence a Buero,” Nuevo Fotogramas, October 14, 1977.

8. José Monelón, “Larra, Buero y nuestra época,” Triunío, No. 766 (October 1, 1977), pp. 38–39.

   Obviously Buero is to be counted among such recent admirers of Larra as Juan Goytisolo, historian Seco Serrano, C. Alonso, and Manuel Lloris. Nevertheless, unlike some of the above writers, Buero reveals the writer's defects and inner contradictions, reproaching him for intellectual pride, unconscious class prejudice, and the acceptance of class privileges incompatible with his politics—as well as for his suicide. See “‘No hay que suicidarse sino seguir viviendo’: Buero Vallejo estrena La detonación, sobre Larra,” Hoja Informativa de Literatura y Filología, No. 54 (Fundación Juan March, November 1977), pp. 4–5.

9. Alfonso Gil, Commentary broadcast by Radio Exterior de España, October 4, 1979.

10. Buero Vallejo, Jueces en la noche. Hoy es Fiesta (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1981), p. 72.

11. This hypothesis reflects a theory often advanced by the Spanish Left.

12. The protagonist thus becomes a first-person narrator as Luis Iglesias Feijoo has shown, although in Jueces the narration is broken by action taking place in the “real life” of the drama. See his La trayectoria dramática de Antonio Buero Vallejo (Santiago de Compostela, 1982). Feijoo shows how the more extensive use of these techniques in the dramas of the 1970s results in an increasingly subjective theater.

13. There are obvious similarities with the case of Julián Grimau, executed despite international protests in 1963 after a trial described by several foreign lawyers as a tragic farce.

14. Buero notes that his characters “aunque se puedan parecer a muchos personajes y figuras de la actualidad, no aluden directamente a ninguna a ellas. Son seres inventados.” Olga Alvarez, “Buero Vallejo: ‘La insuficiencia democrática culpable de la crisis,’” Blanco y Negro, October 16, 1979, p. 48.

15. As Carlos García-Osuna states, the same progression “ha ocurrido con los principales adalides del franquismo que hoy lo son de la democracia,” El Imparcial, October 5, 1979, p. 22. Of course his words refer to the situation in 1979.

16. Alfaya, La Calle, September-October 1, 1979, p. 42.

17. Francisco Umbral, “Eurobuero,” El País, September 13, 1981, p. 24.

18. Buero Vallejo, Caimán. Las cartas boca abajo (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1981), p. 54.

19. Lorenzo López Sancho, “Caimán, una vuelta de Buero Vallejo al sainete melodramático y social,” ABC, September 12, 1981.

20. Buero Vallejo, Diálogo secreto (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1985), p. 85.

21. On the role of the painting see Margaret Jones' excellent “Psychological and Visual Plans in Buero Vallejo's Diálogo secreto,” Estreno (Spring 1986), pp. 33–35.

22. See Leopold de Luis, “Buero Vallejo y el mito de Arachne,” Anaquel (Badjoz), No. 1 (December 1984), p. 47.

23. Buero's attitude during the Franco period was, also, one of hope. He states: “Cuando los escritores bajo el franquismo nos planteamos, sobre todo en el teatro, la inexorabilidad de la tragedia y lo necesario que era para nosotros escribirlas [ … ] ninguno de nosotros se resignaba a que la tragedia real que estábamos viviendo fuera una tragedia irreconciliable y sin esperanza.” “De mi teatro,” Romanistisches Jahrbuch, 30 (1979), pp. 223–24.