Burning the Curtain

the long version

This volume brings together work by some of Spain's leading theatrical talents. Antonio Buero Vallejo's Two Sides to Dr Valmy's Story throws up powerful x-ray images of a psychiatric investigation into the collapse of a policeman's marriage when it is discovered that his job entails the routine torture of political prisoners. Alfonso Sastre's Tragic Prelude probes the existential realities behind a terrorist's complex motives for causing violence. In Almost a Goddess, Jaime Salom skewers Gala Dali, the great surrealist muse, on the end of a pin, exposing the grotesque tragi-comedy of her marriages with the French poet Paul Eluard and the visionary Spanish painter Salvador Dali. Francisco Ors' Contradance offers a daring and controversial exploration of the sexuality of Elizabeth I, Queen of England. The four dramatists represented here express in their own different ways the issues which have been of the greatest concern both to themselves and to Spain as a whole in the wake of the Franco era. Their work also reflects a strong response to Frederico Garcia Lorca's demand that the playwright should 'burn the curtain' between himself and his audience.