Buero Vallejo: In the Burning Darkness

By Antonio Buero Vallejo

Book Overview

Arguably Spain's leading playwright of the twentieth century, Antonio Buero-Vallejo published thirty original plays. In the Burning Darkness was the first play he wrote. The seminal, and lasting, significance of this play was confirmed when an extract from it was read over Buero-Vallejo's grave on the day of his burial.

In the Burning Darkness describes a teaching centre for young people who are blind, where a false unity is maintained by a mixture of fear, coercion and diversion where, when persuasion fails, violence is resorted to, and where "education" is seen to play a part in the regime's ideological apparatus and to encourage the acceptance of pleasant and reassuring myths. The play's principal protagonist is Iggy who, although blind like his classmates, is immediately seen to be different from the others because he carries a cane. When Iggy makes a move on Jane, part of the Centre's golden couple with her boyfriend Charles, he begins to challenge and destabilise the values cherished by the Centre.

Buero-Vallejo described In the Burning Darkness as a work "loaded with future", and that observation points the way to why it is being translated now. Although it emerged in 1950 onto a dreary and trivial theatre scene in Francoist Spain, its themes, such as blindness and anxiety of an alienated protagonist, can speak to modern audiences and have a universal, rather than merely parochially Spanish, resonance. It poses a transcendental question about whether or not violence can ever be justified. The teaching centre and the blindness of those within is symbolic of post-Civil War Spain, where anti-democratic abuses were overlooked. The play operates on literal, political and philosophical levels.

Challenging audiences and seeking hopefully to change mind-sets was the stock in trade of Antonio Buero-Vallejo as a dramatist. As he once stated himself: "Se escribe porque se espera" ("One writes because one hopes").

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0856688436
• ISBN13: 9780856688430
• Release Date: August 1970
• Publisher: Liverpool University Press
• Length: 134 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.7" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

The Burning Darkness

I'm reading this play (in Spanish) in my Pre-AP Spanish class. It's really quite moving, and I think that it's easy to read as long as you've taken at least three years of high school Spanish or Spanish is your first language. Unfortunately, I don't know how good the translation is, but the original is extremely powerful. I'd definitely recommend the play for older readers.

i acted this play...

i am an actor grom HK, i had acted this play, "in the buring darkness" is a very good play, it can train actor. although, we translated it into chinese, we also keep its own poetic writing. if you read, you will find a lot of excitment....

andamos a ciegas

My contempory Spanish lit class at Vanderbilt read this play, and I thought it was a truly masterful piece of work. Aside from the contemporary political themes touched upon, this play also serves as a marvelously crafted religious alegory; Ignatius serves as a strong Christ-figure, and is just as persistent in his mission to point out the foly and blindness of others who will not accept it. En la ardiente oscuridad" adresses a universal theme, our "sentimiento tragico de la vida," to use Unamuno's phrase. This play is for anyone who is tempted to deny his or her own blindness; it is also for anyone who struggles daily with the conflict between comfort and truth; it is also for those who love the teachings of Christand his quest to reveal spiritual blindness wherever he found it. Read this play.

busco un edición inglés

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SUPER!!!!!!

Soy un estudiante de español. Estoy en mi cuarto año de español aquí en los estados unidos. Nosotros leimos esta obra y escribimos sobre la obra en un análisis critical de texto. Creo que esta obra es una expresión sobre la vida en España después de la Guerra Civil Española. Todo el mundo necesita leer esta obra. Explica la diferencía entre la realidad y la fantasía.