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Abstract
Scholars of Spanish theater have often interpreted Antonio Buero Vallejo’s Historia de una escalera (1949) as an allegory for the prison-like atmosphere of postwar Spain. This article expands that concept to present an interpretation of the play’s setting as a liminal space—closely tied to Michel Foucault’s concepts of the heterotopia and the panopticon—between the intimate space of the home and the exposed, public streets of Madrid. Within the liminal stairway, residents transgress the boundaries of privacy through communal vigilance and internalized surveillance, frequently referred to in Spain as “el qué dirán,” which reflect the social context of Francisco Franco’s Spain in the 1940s. The power structures that emerge within the stairway reveal how liminality can confine its subjects in a transitional state over several generations.
Notes
1 All quotes from the play are from the edition published by Espasa Austral and edited by Virtudes Serrano in 2013.
2 For example, see Ruple (“He was the first of the postwar writers to abandon the evasionistic line and attempt serious expression of contemporary problems” [16]); Halsey (“The premiere of Antonio Buero Vallejo’s Historia de una escalera in 1949 marked the resurgence of serious Spanish theater after the Civil War” [13]); Pennington (“Working within the collective effort to transgress the official narrative of the regime, Buero Vallejo rendered a foundational document to his generation by writing and staging this play of muted contrasts and quiet despair” [49]); and Nicholas (“[El teatro] esperaba a Buero Vallejo para fundir esa forma tradicional con un profundo sentido trágico. El que otros dramaturgos—los más serios de nuestros días—le hayan seguido por este cauce, confirma el valor dramático de tal aventura y la importancia histórica y artística de su primer estreno” [Sainete 38]).
3 Buero repeats this phrase in several expository essays included in the second volume of his Obra completa, edited by Luis Iglesias Feijoo and Mariano de Paco. See, for example, “Ante el estreno” 321; “Buero Vallejo habla” 329; “Cuidado” 577; “Palabra final” 325; and “Sobre” 432.
4 Gustavo Pérez Firmat’s Literature and Liminality treats the concept in this way, defining liminality as a “position” that designates “the spatial relationship between a center and its periphery” (xiv).
5 In addition, as Pennington suggests: “Understanding and living in the silences ‘voiced’ in Historia, the spectators became the co-creators in the work's meaning. […] When an author leaves so much implied but not ‘said,’ an audience comments on the muteness of a speech […]” (50).
6 In a long dialogue with Urbano in which they discuss the future, Fernando exclaims, “¡Es que le tengo miedo al tiempo! Es lo que más me hace sufrir. Ver cómo pasan los días, y los años…, sin que nada cambie” (64).
7 See Pennington: “The survivors of the atrocities, the humiliated and terrorized losers of the war, are literarily transfigured into the tenants of the apartment building as Buero finishes his play in 1948. The hardships and suffering present during this period and the atmosphere of hopelessness were the results of the actions of Franco's troops. These on-going acts of humiliation, revenge, and terror constituted the silent background of the play when it premiered in 1949” (37).
8 Several times, Urbano threatens Pepe with some form of “¡te juro, por tu madre, que te tiro por el hueco de la escalera!” (68).
9 My thanks to Symposium’s anonymous peer reviewer for suggesting the addition of this phrase.
10 On the presence of the Spanish Civil War in the minds of spectators, if not on stage, see Pennington, whose chapter is titled “Entering the Silences of Historia de una escalera,” and Doménech, who states that the “ambiente opresivo” is largely caused by “lo que no se dice, por los sobreentendidos que gravitan constantemente en escena: por ejemplo, la guerra civil, de la que no se habla abiertamente ni una sola vez, pero que está allí y sus efectos casi se respiran (acto tercero)” (84; emphasis in original).
11 O’Connor notes that Urbano’s original rebuke (“Sí, hasta para vosotros los cobardes que nos habéis fallado”.) was changed to “¡Sí! ¡Hasta para los zánganos y cobardes, como tú!” to avoid allusion to the war (283).
12 Carmina, hija: ¡Déjame, Fernando! Aquí, no. Nos pueden ver.
Fernando, hijo: ¡Qué nos importa!
13 See Ortega-Sierra for a detailed account of Paca’s and other characters’ interactions with this handrail.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Adam L. Winkel
Adam L. Winkel is Assistant Professor of Spanish at High Point University in North Carolina and the author of “The Spaces of Martín Marco” in Hispanic Studies Review and “‘Ya se aburren de tanta capital’: Leisure, Language, and Law in El Jarama” in Bulletin of Spanish Studies. His teaching and research interests include post-civil war Spanish literature and cultural studies, sport and culture, spatial theories, and urban theory and cultural practices.