In Diálogo secreto, Antonio Buero Vallejo's recent play (1984), the dramaturge bombards the spectator with multiple themes and images which at first glance give the impression of having little in common. Coupled with the issue of critic versus creator, one hears a technical explanation of how perfectly complementary colors form white light; references to middle-class morality and revolutionary ideology are absorbed by an audience which also hears allusions to Calderón de la Barca, Ortega y Gasset, Velázquez, and El Greco; actual dialogues intertwine with imaginary ones and at times give way to flashbacks. Complicating further the baffling barrage, one person is a live character in the play as well as a stone bust to which people direct difficult questions; and another veridical character in the play also appears as an imagined personage with whom the protagonist converses. So disparate do much components of the play appear, that one is left to wonder if Buero, after more than thirty-five years as Spain's most prominent playwright, has not gone overboard with his means and messages in this case.

Part of the problem of critical interpretation lies in the fact that the dramatist employs in the play some visual and aural imagery which require close examination. For example, in the background of the stage setting, on the wall hangs a large copy of Velázquez' masterpiece, Las hilanderas. Iglesias Feijoo, in the Introducción of the Austral edition of the play, refers to the painting as an essential key to understanding completely this Fantasía en dos actos:

Toda consideración de la última producción del autor que no tuviese en cuenta la importancia conferida en ella a la pintura velazqueña y, en concreto, al cuadro de Las hilanderas sería forzosamente incompleta.¹

This present study endeavors to demonstrate how the painting and the myth it depicts are inextricably linked to the exposition of one of the central themes of the play.² Then the focus of this essay will shift to the music heard throughout the play to discern that the aural imagery reiterates a co-equal motif. Once these two elements of the play's imagery are scrutinized, other constituents of the drama begin to make more sense. For instance, Gaspar's ostensibly mindless, rambling remarks throughout the play will be seen to coincide with and buttress the theme underlined by the music and art. In the end, after cutting through the surface, it will be possible to appreciate that Buero is far from past his creative prime, and Diálogo secreto may be one of his most complex and unified works to date.

Since the play is new and the text only recently published and available in the United States, a significant portion of this study will be descriptive as well as evaluative. A synopsis, here, is in order. The play centers on the dilemma of a middle-aged art critic and historian (Fabio) who has risen to respectable fame and economic status. He lives comfortably in a contemporary Spanish home, surrounded by his wife (Teresa), father (Braulio), daughter (Aurora), and one of his father's old friends from the days of the Civil War (Gaspar). But Fabio's happiness and well-to-do professional position are built on a deception: he is color-blind and has revealed his deficiency to no one, though he believes his father must know.³ As the play opens, Fabio's lifelong cover-up has brought him to a state bordering on neurosis: he imagines himself talking secretly with his father in an effort to ascertain the patriarch's motives and reasoning for allowing him as a youth to pursue professions (art and, subsequently, art criticism) he was ill-equipped to master. Years of deception and insecurity have left Fabio unstable, as his “diálogos secretos” reveal. His fragile emotional condition is threatened more as he learns a young promising artist committed suicide following his latest published review of the painter's works. Though the critic admits to no regret regarding the incident, he is forced by circumstances to question the objectivity, or hypocrisy, of his articles. For the victim (Samuel Cosme) was known by Fabio and hated. He was the lover of Aurora, and Fabio had resolved to do anything to protect his only child from this drug-addicted, depressive mamarracho (p. 43). Fabio apparently acts out of love and concern for his daughter, but he receives the understandable hatred of Aurora. She resolves to determine whether her father actually is color-blind, as Cosme once suspected: “Este padre tuyo parece daltónico” (p. 81). She ultimately succeeds in uncovering his disability and gives an ultimatum: Fabio must compose a letter to his editors confessing his handicap, or Aurora will send the revelation herself. He refuses, his chief concern being not the disapproval of his peers or the public, but the loss of his wife's respect and love. When Teresa learns the truth, Fabio believes, she will have no desire to remain with him. As the play draws to a close, Aurora leaves home vowing never to return, after having disclosed Fabio's secret to Teresa. Presently, Fabio, when left alone, enters his study to commit suicide rather than face life without his wife's love.

Literally framing this action is Velázquez' painting, and one must first address the issue as to how the work of art relates to the plot and themes of the play. Perhaps more to the point, why is this particular painting hanging in Fabio's house? To respond to this query one should reflect that though the work is referred to in the play as Las hilanderas, the original title given by Velázquez was La fábula de Aracne, which may, therefore, be judged as the central allegory being communicated to the viewer.⁴ The painting is composed of two quite different scenes—in the foreground and in the upper background—but a number of art historians feel it actually depicts two episodes of the same story: the myth of Arachne—her weaving contest with and defeat by Pallas Athena.⁵ In the foreground of the painting some women of the working class are seated spinning or winding yarn. Most prominent are an older lady at the spinning wheel, and a younger woman placing thread on a spool with her back to the viewer. In the background, on a higher plane, is another group of women dressed as court ladies of Velázquez' era since, as Fabio explains, “El pintor traslada la fábula antigua a su actualidad, o sea a todos los tiempos” (p. 48). One person wears armor and has an arm raised as if to denounce a young woman farther in the background. For centuries the painting's subject has been the source of controversy and confusion. Some held it was a genre scene of the royal tapestry shops, others considered the armor-clad figure and the cowering girl part of the tapestry on the rear wall.⁶ The divergent interpretations have hardly diminished in the present century, but most pertinent to this study is the interpretation Buero chooses to incorporate in the play.⁷ Echoing Ortega y Gasset's opinion as to what the foreground symbolizes, Fabio sees the working women as the Fates: “las dueñas del tiempo en el primer término: las Moiras. Es decir, las Parcas. Ortega lo apuntó …” (p. 48).⁸ The action portrayed in the background is from the myth and represents the moment Athena turns Arachne into a spider at the conclusion of the competition. The two figures are not part of tapestry on the wall because it is a woven version of a well-known painting by Titian, The Rape of Europa, which hung in the court of Phillip IV during Velázquez' time.⁹ Fabio clarifies: “Esa hipótesis (that the figures are part of the tapestry) se desechó hace tiempo” (p. 47), and, “Se conoce el cuadro de ese tapiz y no hay tal figura” (p. 48).¹⁰

When attempting to establish the reasons a person chooses a painting to decorate a home one can presume the selection would be for positive purposes: the art communicates some message with which the owner identifies or, he or she simply likes it. A few comments by Fabio connote he, as art critic, feels a kinship with Pallas Athena as standard bearer of the arts (Athena was goddess of the domestic arts). In an attempt to explain his oftentimes harsh professional opinions he states: “La pintura se ha vuelto tan libre e imprevisible que apenas quedan criterios firmes para juzgarla” (p. 65); “Pero un crítico debe restaurar normas; está obligado a la severidad cuando es necesario” (pp. 65–66).¹¹ Most likely, Velázquez' The Fable of Arachne reinforces or has reinforced for Fabio the moral necessity for someone to uphold artistic standards in a modern world lacking them. Such a person should also be unflinchingly severe in maintaining such “normas.” But as Diálogo secreto divulges, events internal (Fabio's secret dialogues) and external (Cosme's death), force the critic to reassess his figurative position as Athena. And as his secret begins to be exposed he increasingly sees himself as Arachne, shrinking before the all-knowing, condemning gaze of the goddess.

This new self-perception, wherein Fabio sees himself as the victim, is reinforced in the passage where he imagines Pallas saying, “No te castigo por ambiciosa. Por mentirosa” (p. 49). He realizes this denunciation applies to him. Iglesias Feijoo explains that as the play progresses Fabio identifies “más y más con la tejedora castigada por la diosa” (p. 28). Toward the end of the play the art critic recognizes Athena has conquered and he has become Arachne: “La araña que se encoge de vergüenza” (p. 84). Earlier one might have identified Fabio as Athena and Samuel Cosme as Arachne. But Fabio eventually assumes Cosme's position and, as the younger artist did, turns to suicide. In this role-change Aurora is seen incipiently as the punishing goddess and Fabio's earlier words, “Los dioses antiguos no tenían piedad” (p. 47), become a telltale foreshadowing of the bitterness and lack of mercy Fabio will experience later at the hands of his daughter.

Yet since it is apparent that Buero chose Velázquez' painting (distinctively as it treats the Fable of Arachne) as “símbolo central de la obra” (p. 26), it is necessary to apprehend completely the myth which Velázquez understood. Ovid's Metamorphoses was among the Baroque artist's personal reference books and it is widely believed that Velázquez used Ovid's classical version of the myth as his source material.¹² Given Buero's penchant for meticulously researching and crafting his plays it would be informative to examine scrupulously Ovid's tale. All goes as generally understood: Arachne's talent and haughtiness, Athena's disguise and indignation, the weaving competition. But then Ovid's original version differs significantly from what one encounters in many references in art anthologies. The result of the contest is the question here. “Arachne lost, and to punish the girl, Athena turned her into a spider,” is one rendering.¹³ Or, Arachne is simply, “the mortal who dared to challenge the goddess to a competition in the art of weaving and, being the loser, was metamorphosed into a spider.”¹⁴ Again, in an article from The Art Bulletin: Arachne “was punished by being transformed into a spider.”¹⁵ Iglesias Feijoo, with his remark about “la Palas que destruye a una osada Aracne, víctima de su poder” (p. 27), sounds a consonant understanding of the myth (emphasis added in all quotes). But these interpretations or condensations of the myth are misleading. When the weaving contest concluded the goddess became enraged at the audacity of the mortal to depict the sins of the gods themselves. There is no indication of Arachne “losing” the competition: “Not Pallas, nor Envy himself could find a flaw in that work.”¹⁶ But Athena's wrath and indignation were enough to make the girl cower: “The wretched girl could not endure it, and put a noose about her bold neck.”¹⁷ Arachne thereupon committed suicide. Then in a display of compassion not normally attributed to her, the goddess acted quickly: “As she hung, Pallas lifted her in pity, and said: ‘Live on, indeed wicked girl, but hang thou still …’”¹⁸ By so saying Athena changed the young woman into a spider. But to term Arachne's metamorphosis a punishment is inaccurate. Pallas saved, or resurrected, Arachne, from a self-imposed castigation, and the goddess' action is described in the original Latin as miserata.

Once the Ovidian version of the myth is fully exposed, one can descry the parallels between the tale and the play. For Fabio, as Arachne, at the drama's climax enters his cubicle to take his life out of humiliation also, similar to the mythological girl. At this point he sees Teresa as the goddess who will condemn him: “Ella, tan verdadera, verá en mí, de pronto, a un bicho repelente” (p. 84). The door of his study closes, but his wife comes on the scene moments later, frantically intuiting what is happening. In one of the finest monologues of Buerian theater she turns toward the darkened cubicle and pleads that her husband return to her. With this highly emotional plea Teresa reveals she has known for years of Fabio's handicap and nevertheless continued to love him. Indeed, she consciously decided to suffer with him. Her words fall into the silent darkness until at last, almost completely drained of emotion, Teresa (with words analogous to Athena's) cries out, “Resucita, muerto mío” (p. 129). Then, in a significant departure from what Frank Casa designated “The Darkening Vision” of Buero's later plays, Fabio slowly emerges to embrace the love and constancy of a companion who has never faltered.¹⁹

By accepting Athena as a life-restoring goddess of compassion and grasping the formal similarities between her and Teresa, the motif of Woman as Savior begins to emanate from the play. This idea lies not only implicit in the painting on the rear wall, but also in the musical imagery permeating the action on stage. The only music heard throughout the drama is from Richard Wagner's The Flying Dutchman (El buque fantasma), Act Two, the “Spinner's Chorus.” A correlation between Arachne's weaving and the spinning of the woman in the opera is at once evident. But the full connection cannot be understood without comprehending the essential argument and theme of Wagner's opera. The story is based on a Romantic tale of a sailor who sells his soul to the devil in return for rounding the Cape of Good Hope.

But then the devil naturally endeavors to get the best of his bargains. In fact, the devil condemns him to sail on for ever, with one proviso. Every seven years the Dutchman is allowed to halt his ghostly vessel and try to win the heart of a faithful maiden upon dry land. If she will follow him even unto death, on board his ship, then Satan's curse can be lifted.²⁰

The opera specifically deals with one such episode when the Dutchman's ship docks at a small port in Norway. Tempted by the Dutchman's riches, Captain Daland, who lives at the same port, invites the weary traveler to his house. The opening of Act Two is described thus: “In Daland's house the nurse Mary and some girls are spinning. Senta (Daland's daughter) is dreamily contemplating a portrait of the fabled Dutchman, and sings the ballad that tells his story, expressing her pity for his fate.”²¹

The music heard in Buero's play is from the song the girls sing as they weave, and the text of the music is as follows:

Hum and buzz, good wheel,
gaily, gaily turn!
Spin, spin a thousand threads,
good wheel, hum and buzz!
My love is out at sea,
he thinks of home
and his true maid;
my good wheel, hum and sing!(22)

From the words of the song and a knowledge of the opera's overall premise one can espy that the atmosphere implanted at the beginning of Act Two of the opera is one of longing, love, and dedication. Musically, the leitmotif of redemption (to blossom more fully later in Senta's ballad) is introduced in the “Spinners' Chorus,” and is “the thematic kernel of the work.”²³ This music is heard intermittently throughout Diálogo secreto, and it seems plausible that the playwright is drawing parallels between Senta's love and dedication for the unfortunate Dutchman, and Teresa's unwavering affection for her troubled husband. Wagner considered Senta “the character from whom the drama really springs;” and, “woman in all her infinite femininity, woman as yet unknown but intuited, longed for—in short, the woman of the future,”²⁴The Flying Dutchman turns out to be, as one music critic suggests, “a love story through music,” and, by association, one senses that Diálogo secreto is also.²⁵ Therefore the music in Buero's play must be regarded more profoundly than as merely a reference or foreshadowing of death, which Iglesias Feijoo proposes in his Introducción (pp. 28–29). One could more likely defend an opposite stance that the “Spinners' Chorus” is symbolic of life and love. The redemption leitmotif introduced at the first of the Second Act is heard again as the opera concludes. Another music critic describes the moment as

A moment of victory, of the transfigured Dutchman and his redeemer. Clasped in each other's arms they rise in a vision above the wild sea that has brought death to one but deliverance to the other, and the music gently subsides as the woodwind, piano, play for the last time the languorous redemption motif.²⁶

As Diálogo secreto ends, after Teresa has brought Fabio back from the brink of suicide, the “coro de las hilanderas” is heard (132). Linked by Wagner's leitmotif to the “moment of victory” described above, Buero's play also communicates a triumph of a sort as Fabio embraces his redeemer. Hence one can perceive that Wagner's music complements the myth of Arachne in calling to mind the same fundamental theme: the salvation of man through women the compassion and steadfast treue of woman in the face of her companion's suffering.²⁷

Probably not coincidental is a reference in Diálogo secreto to another art masterpiece which hints at the identical intendment of the imagery discussed to this point. It is the passing remark about El Greco's El Expolio (The Disrobing of Christ) (p. 80). One of the remarkable features of the painting is the liberty the artist took in depicting the three woman dear to Jesus in the scene. There is no biblical justification for such a rendering, but El Greco was adamant when asked to remove the figures from the painting. Basing his artistic inspiration on Saint Bonaventure's Meditations on the Passion of Jesus Christ, the artist reasoned these three Marys, so staunch in their spiritual dedication to the Christ, should not be left out of a scene picturing Jesus' moment of greatest anguish.²⁸ One tends not to doubt Buero knew the significance of this liberty by El Greco, given his knowledge of art (he originally studied to be an artist), and the fact he specifically, for some reason, makes reference to this painting. In a limited manner it ties in with the idea of woman as faithful companion in times of trial.

With the theme of the constancy and redemptive powers of woman coming into clearer focus some of the remarks of Gaspar become decipherable. Many times in the play the old iluso spouts phrases which appear to make little sense, until Teresa's stature is revealed. He rambles on, voicing such irrelevant comments, as “Las mujeres son lo mas grande del mundo. Ya quisiéramos nosotros …” (p. 66). Fabio upon hearing him, “menea la cabeza, lamentando su incoherencia” (p. 66). Gaspar soon repeats, “Son lo más grande del mundo … Sí … Ya lo creo” (p. 67). Later, “Si no fuera por las mujeres … ¡Ah! Sois de abrigo … Fuertes como panteras” (p. 72); and Teresa reports him saying, “Que las mujeres somos listas como diablos” (p. 91). Once the deception is revealed and Fabio unmasked, Gaspar takes a moment to speak privately with Teresa. The old revolutionary confides: “Teresa, tengo setenta años y no puedes echar a mala parte mis palabras. Ojalá hubiese encontrado a tiempo … una mujer como tú. Pero veinticuatro años de cárcel no dan muchas oportunidades … (p. 114). With a sad smile she thanks him and Gaspar concludes, “¡Qué compañera habrías sido!” (p. 114). Thus the old gentleman himself clarifies to a degree his earlier puzzling remarks and one sees his words reinforce the message of the art and music of the play while foreshadowing the climax.

Another passage of the play corroborates the thesis that one of the strongest themes of the play is Woman as Savior. We recall it was Gaspar's sister who brought him food to the prison during his war-time incarceration (p. 50). With these “paquetes de una hermana suya” (p. 50) he provided Fabio's father with enough nourishment that he might survive also. Braulio explains to his son, “Y por eso tú también le debes la vida” (p. 50). Indirectly, Fabio owes his life to one woman (Gaspar's sister), and directly to another—Teresa, after his brush with suicide.

It becomes transparent how Buero's play, then, is a figurative homage to woman.²⁹ This concept is denoted in the images of the merciful Athena, Senta's pity and constancy, the dedication of the biblical Marys, the selfless acts of Gaspar's sister and, above all, in “la compasiva piedad de Teresa,” “el personaje más fuerte de todos” (p. 29). After being drawn from the archetypal cave of his study to a new state of awareness, Fabio signals his recognition of the monumental strength and love of such women when he admits to Teresa, “lo superior a mí que tú eres” (p. 130). And in a move of great symbolic importance he seats her on the diván, “en el mismo lugar que ocupó Braulio” (p. 130), when he would imagine himself talking to his father privately. The spectator is left to hope, because of this move, that Fabio's secret dialogues will soon dissolve, for he has finally accepted his wife as an equal partner—the complementary color with whom he may now form “la luz blanca” (p. 55) of honesty and truth.

As this study attempts to show, reports of Buero's artistic demise, specifically regarding Diálogo secreto, are exaggerated.³⁰ John Kronik once said of El tragaluz, “a scrutiny of its formal elements shows that these are integrally related to the exposition of his (Buero's) theme,” conveying that the playwright knew exactly what he was doing in constructing a tightly woven whole.³¹ Every structure in that 1967 play was interrelated and nothing left to chance or coincidence. Diálogo secreto may not be far from a similar appraisal. The art and music interpolated into the imagery of the drama betray serious, purposeful research and selection, and suggest other components of the play may be investigated with fruitful, valid results. It is certainly clear the play merits more than being passed off as, “Ya visto, ya oído.”³² What initially seems to be a rehashed plethora of confusing images, themes, characterizations, and techniques is in reality a carefully polished gem from the workshop of a master craftsman at the height of his creative powers.

Notes

1. Antonio Buero Vallejo, Diálogo secreto: Fantasía en dos actos, intro. Luis Iglesias Feijoo (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, Colección Austral, 1985), p. 25. All further references to this play, or to Iglesias Feijoo's Introducción, will be indicated in parenthesis in the text of this study.

   Iglesias Feijoo's statement that the painting must be understood to evaluate properly the play is undoubtedly correct. The approach of this present essay will be similar to David Herzberger's as he reviews the function of art in El sueño de la razón: “Unlike in a picture book, where illustrations often serve an augmentative function, safely paralleling what has been conveyed in language, Buero's incorporation of painting into Sueño creates an iconicity that defines the nature of the entire aesthetic enterprise.” Thus I endeavor to show how the art and music of Diálogo secreto “inform and structure the play.” See “The Painterly Vision of Buero Vallejo's El sueño de la razón,” Symposium, 39, No. 2 (1985), 94, 103.

2. See Leopoldo de Luis, “Buero Vallejo y el mito de Aracne,” Anaquel, No. 1 (Badajoz, Dec. 1984), pp. 46–47.

3. A color-blind art critic is unlikely, but hardly inconceivable. See Eric Pennington, “La ceguera del crítico: Reexamining Buero's Premise in Diálogo secreto,” Estreno, 12, No. 2 (1986), 2–3.

4. Buero is aware of the original title of the painting, which he terms Fábula de Palas y Aracne (p. 37), but evidently opts to use the title Las hilanderas since that is how it is popularly known in Spain.

5. In 1940 Enriqueta Harris was one of the first to see the classical allusion in the background of the Fable of Arachne. For in-depth background comments on the most prominent interpretations of the painting, see Madlyn Millner Kahr, “Velázquez' Las Hilanderas: A New Interpretation,” The Art Bulletin, 52 (1980), 376–85.

6. Millner Kahr, pp. 376–78.

7. One of the latest theories posits the painting has nothing to do with the Fable of Arachne, but takes as its source an engraving titled Lucretia Spinning With Her Maids by the Dutch artist Hendrick Goltzius. Millner Kahr, 379–85.

8. See José Ortega y Gasset, Obras completas, Vol. 8 (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1962), pp. 481, 628–29, 646.

9. See Dale Brown, The World of Velázquez 1599–1660 (New York: Time-Life Books, 1969), p. 142.

10. In “Psychological and Visual Planes in Buero Vallejo's Diálogo secreto,” Estreno, 12, Vol. 1. (1986), 34; Margaret Jones writes that the story of Arachne is the subject of the tapestry. As mentioned, art critics at one time did accept this theory as plausible, but Fabio, in any case, does not.

11. There is a small linguistic link between Athena and Fabio also. Following her contest with Arachne the goddess beat the girl with the “boxwood shuttle” on the loom, that is, with a type of wooden instrument. See Mark P. O. Morford and Robert J. Lenardon, Classical Mythology (New York and London: Longman, 1977), p. 103. When Fabio comments on the severity of his review of Cosme's works, he refers to having delivered him a “varapalo,” a blow with a stick (p. 43). Figuratively, both Athena and Fabio dispose of their rivals by the same means.

12. See Enriqueta Harris, Velázquez (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), p. 160.

13. Brown, p. 143

14. Harris, p. 159

15. Millner Kahr, 377.

16. Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Frank Justus Miller (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1946), Vol. I, p. 297.

17. Ovid, p. 297.

18. Ovid, p. 297.

19. Casa's article charts the increasing violence and pessimism of Buero's plays since El sueño de la razón in 1970. See “The Darkening Vision: The Latter Plays of Buero Vallejo,” Estreno, 5, No. 1 (Spring 1979), 30–33. For the first time in many a play Buero's latest drama does not conclude tragically, although disaster is barely averted.

20. Phillip Hodson, Who's Who in Wagner (New York: Macmillan, 1984), p. 35.

21. Alan Blyth, Libretto Notes, The Flying Dutchman, by Richard Wagner, cond. Otto Klemperer, New Philharmonia Orchestra and B. B. C. Chorus, Angel, SCL-3730, n.d., p. 3.

22. Blyth, Libretto, n. pag.

23. Blyth, Libretto Notes, p. 2.

24. Ronald Taylor, Richard Wagner: His Life, Art and Thought (New York: Taplinger, 1979), p. 63.

25. Paul Bekker, Richard Wagner: His Life in His Work, trans. M. M. Bozman (New York: W. W. Norton, 1931), p. 127.

26. Taylor, p. 62.

27. This is the German term used to characterize Senta's love: “‘Faithful’ or ‘true unto death’ are hardly good renditions of Wagner's Treue. Utter dedication through empathy comes perhaps closest to an adequate translation of the word.” See Robert Raphael, Richard Wagner (New York: Twayne, 1969), p. 22. By extension the word characterizes Teresa's devotion.

28. Jonathan Brown, et al., El Greco of Toledo (Boston: Little, Brown, 1982), pp. 232–33.

29. Such a tribute is seen in Buero's La tejedora de sueños (1952) and Madrugada (1953). The playwright also cogently depicts the strength of woman in La doble historia del doctor Valmy (1964). See Eric Pennington, “La doble historia del doctor Valmy: A View from the Feminine,” Symposium, 40, No. 2 (1986), 131–139. Diálogo secreto however, must be deemed a culmination, in certain aspects. Nowhere has Buero expressed as explicitly the quasi-divine qualities or potential of woman.

30. One critic states:

    La sensación es que Buero ha dejado pasar delante de él algunos buenos temas, pero que sus fantasmas personales, su desconfianza por las sutilezas y los matices del arte dramático, su necesidad perentoria de convencer a toda costa y la ceguera para los colores del arte dramático los han dejado ir intactos.

    See E. Haro Tecglen, “La-ceguera del autor,” rev. of Diálogo secreto, El País, 26 Aug. 1984, “Espectáculos” section, p. 30, col. 5. As I have shown, perhaps Buero is not the blind one. See note 3 of this study.

31. John W. Kronik, “Buero Vallejo's El tragaluz and Man's Existence in History,” Hispanic Review, 41, No. 2 (Spring 1973), 371.

32. See Juan Luis Veza, “Diálogo secreto. Ya visto, ya oído,” Reseña, No. 153 (Nov.–Dec. 1984), pp. 16–17.