ANTONIO BUERO VALLEJO, AFTER TWENTY YEARS of continued success, is generally considered Spain's most important contemporary dramatist. He has confounded those critics who have affirmed that the Spanish theatrical public would not support a serious dramatist, that is, one whose aim was not primarily to entertain his audience. Since the now historic success. of Historia de una escalera (Story of a Staircase) in 1949 flung open the doors of a career as playwright to him, Buero, unlike other popular dramatists, has written slowly and carefully, having had produced only thirteen full-length plays and one one-act play. One or two others remain unproduced, while another has been recently published. It would not be amiss at this time to take an overall view of the work of this author who has added a new dimension to contemporary Spanish drama, to examine his works in order to see which are the dominant themes and ideas that have won approval from critics and public alike.
TODAY'S HEROES are sometimes tomorrow's villains, and unfortunately, to a limited extent, that is the unhappy lot of Antonio Buero Vallejo, whose play Historia de una escalera (Story of a Staircase) in 1949 injected new life into the stagnant Spanish theater and inspired many young dramatists to write serious plays, directly or indirectly criticizing the political, social, and economic policies of Spain. A prisoner for six and a half years, under sentence of death for eight months, Buero was released in 1946 and soon after won the Lope de Vega prize for Historia de una escalera, which became an instant hit. Within several years, he and another outstanding young dramatist, Alfonso Sastre, became symbols of liberal opposition to the Franco regime. liberal opposition to the Franco regime.
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