SOURCE: A review of Buero Vallejo: ‘El concierto de San Ovidio,’ by David Johnson and The Shot (‘La detonación’), by Antonio Buero Vallejo, translated by David Johnson, in Modern Language Review, Vol. 88, No. 1, January, 1993, pp. 242–43.

In the following review, Thompson lauds Johnson's critical guide to Buero Vallejo's El concierto de San Ovidio and his translation of the dramatist's La detonación.

The most impressive feature of Buero's best plays is the way in which each of them is totally integrated around a powerful dramatic nucleus of character, situation, and visual or aural effect: the Mario/Vicente conflict, the skylight, the train noises, and the ‘pregunta tremenda’ in El tragaluz, for example. David Johnston brings out this clarity and coherence very well in his guide to El concierto de San Ovidio and in the introduction to The Shot. Both plays emerge as complex structures conveying important ideas, as...