The Post-Franco Plays

It could be argued that once the transition to democracy had begun, Buero Vallejo and other writers of the opposition had no focus for their committed literature. The notion that the committed writers were somehow out of date, however, rests on the belief that post-Franco Spain was an open, liberated, ideology-free society. Buero disagreed and continued to use his theatre to deliver a critique of society. While it is undeniable that, after the end of Francoism, the central focus for his denunciations was no longer there, Buero did not redefine his role in the light of the transition but rather continued to view his function as that of the traditional intellectual in society, highlighting the new forms of censorship, propaganda and inequality to be found there. At the centre of his post-Franco theatre remained the twin preoccupations of accountability and remembering. He was also concerned to account for his own past actions, that is, to vindicate his oft-criticized posibilismo at a time when some were saying that his work was no longer relevant. This is nowhere more evident than in his extremely motivated portrait of Larra as heroic posibilista in La detonación.

In his post-Franco theatre, Buero argued for an abandonment of the pacto de olvido and for the need to confront the past. He returned to the themes of myth and history; the history referred to is recent Spanish history, and a new mythology falsifies a new reality. The pacto de olvido forms an important part of this latest mystification. Buero was quite obviously disillusioned with modern Spain, and these plays are notably more pessimistic than earlier ones. An opportunity for answerability and remembering has been deliberately ignored in the name of progress. This new Spain, based on the contradictory ruptura pactada, is portrayed as a myth that distorts the reality of continuismo. The notion that modern Spanish society is wholly democratic, given its origins and its denial of the past, is exposed as yet another mystification. Yet Buero himself was again contradictory. One of the more troublesome facts about Buero's post-Franco theatre is that, while condemning the latest, more insidious forms of mystification that disguise new ideologies in society, he engaged in his own form of mystification of the recent past or, more specifically, of a certain spirit of opposition, now absent.