SOURCE: Lott, Robert E. “Functional Flexibility and Ambiguity in Buero Vallejo's Plays.” Symposium XX, no. 2 (summer 1966): 150-62.

In the following essay, Lott defines Buero Vallejo's term “functional flexibility” in relation to his work and attempts to classify the playwright's dramatic oeuvre.

Antonio Buero Vallejo has rightly decried attempts to classify his plays according to the direct and realistic method represented by Historia de una escalera and, presumably, Hoy es fiesta, or the speculative, symbolic, or imaginative manner of most of his other works.¹ He says that En la ardiente oscuridad is different from both tendencies, and that Hoy es fiesta is as close to it as to Historia de una escalera, despite the similarity of settings in these two plays. Yet, useful distinctions and parallels can be made, but only with full awareness of the complex interrelations and multiple functions of his diverse works, concepts, and characters. A...