SOURCE: Macklin, J. J. “Tragedy and Politics in Jueces en la noche.” Neophilologus LXXVII, no. 4 (October 1993): 587-600.

In the following essay, Macklin considers the political nature of Jueces en la noche, contending that “the play's exploration of problems confronting the collectivity is firmly rooted in the portrayal of the individual and his tragic dilemma.”

Jueces en la noche (1979)¹ may not be one of Buero Vallejo's best plays, but it is the one which most directly engages with the issues of the day, namely, the political dangers besetting the Spanish state in the immediate post-Franco era.² On one level, then, it is an overtly political play, dealing with the transition from the old to the new order and with the difficult accommodations which established politicians have to make in order to survive. This fundamental theme is set in the context of the rise of the Left, the continued power...