- Buero Vallejo, Antonio
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▪ 2000Spanish playwright (b. Sept. 29, 1916, Guadalajara, Spain—d. April 28, 2000, Madrid, Spain), was the country's best-known and most important dramatist in the second half of the 20th century. He was studying art in Madrid when the Spanish Civil War began in 1936, and he left school to become a medical orderly in the Republican Army. At the end of the war he was imprisoned and sentenced to death (the Nationalists had earlier killed his father), but his death sentence was commuted. When he was released from prison in 1946, he decided to stay in Spain and oppose the regime of Francisco Franco through his writing. Using allegory and myth and, particularly in his later plays, events and personages from history, he created dramas that portrayed the oppressive political situation of Spain, and they usually, but not always, got past the government's censors. A number of his characters were blind, deaf, or insane or suffered from other disabilities, a device he used to comment on both the political and the human situation. His second play, Historia de una escalera, won the Lope de Vega prize in 1949. It was followed by some 30 additional plays, including Hoy es fiesta (1956) and El concierto de San Ovidio (1962). He also translated the works of other playwrights, including those of Bertolt Brecht, and published writings on art and artists. In 1971 he was given membership in the Royal Spanish Academy, and in 1986 he won the Cervantes Prize, the highest literary award in Spain. He was the first playwright ever to be so honoured.
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▪ Spanish playwrightborn Sept. 29, 1916, Guadalajara, Spaindied April 29, 2000, Madridplaywright considered the most important Spanish dramatist of the post-World War II generation.Buero Vallejo studied art in Madrid and Guadalajara from 1934 to 1936. During the Civil War (1936–39), he served as a medical orderly in the Spanish Republican Army. After the war, he was condemned to death by the Nationalists, but the sentence was commuted to imprisonment. He was held in prison for more than six years.During the 1940s and '50s, a period known as the “years of silence” in Spain because of the repressive nature of Francisco Franco (Franco, Francisco)'s regime, Buero Vallejo managed to give a voice to the downtrodden. He won national notice in 1949 with his play Historia de una escalera (1950; History of a Stairway), for which he was awarded the Lope de Vega, an important literary prize. The play portrays the frustrations of apartment house tenants in a slum in Madrid. His one-act play produced in the same year, Palabras en la arena (“Words in the Sand”), which had for its theme adultery and the need for mercy, won the Amigos de los Quinteros Prize; many of his subsequent plays also earned Spanish literary awards. In En la ardiente oscuridad (1951; In the Burning Darkness), his second full-length play, a home for the blind stands as a metaphor for society. La tejedora de sueños (1952; The Dream Weaver, 1967) is based on mythology, and Irene; o, el tesoro (1954; “Irene; or, The Treasure”) on the fantastic. His basic theme is the yearning for human happiness and the obstacles that frustrate its attainment. In Hoy es fiesta (1956; Today's a Holiday), Buero Vallejo returned to the slums of Madrid for his ironic and realistic material. His realism echoes the style of Arthur Miller (Miller, Arthur). Buero Vallejo's later writing shows the influence of Bertolt Brecht (Brecht, Bertolt), whose works he translated.Buero Vallejo's historical plays were carefully researched. They include Un soñador para un pueblo (1958; “A Dreamer for the Nation”), which deals with the failure to modernize Spain under Charles III, Las meninas (1960; “The Ladies-in-Waiting”), which is about the court painter Velázquez, and El concierto de San Ovidio (1962; The Concert at Saint Ovide), which is set in Paris during the French Revolution. El tragaluz (1967; The Basement Window) deals with the Spanish Civil War. Later works include El sueño de la razón (1970; The Sleep of Reason) and La doble historia del Doctor Valmy (1970; “The Double Life of Doctor Valmy”).In 1971 Buero Vallejo was elected to the Spanish Academy.Additional ReadingRobert L. Nicholas, The Tragic Stages of Antonio Buero Vallejo (1972); Martha T. Halsey, Antonio Buero Vallejo (1973).* * *
Universalium. 2010.