by Antonio Buero Vallejo (Author), Carlos Gorostiza (Foreword by)
In the author's own words his play "aims to set down within a realistic framework, so necessary to the theatre, a nucleus of problems and passions involving man in general, and not blind people in particular." The physical blindness of the depicted characters is only a motive or pretext for presenting the limitations we all share as human beings. Accordingly, the play must be understood as a sketch of the tragedy of man and his destiny, a problem which again is acquiring legitimacy and urgency, outstepping from the serious Spanish theatre studies into the surrounding reality. Two aspects are set down as intentionally dominant within the plan of Buero Vallejo's work. One is the social relationship, a mixture of free and forced situations, which arestablished between a strong individuality whose reasoning and frustration conflict with the reasoning and passion of the community. The other involves the tension of the visionary, the yearning for "light" and the belief in it which occasionally distinguishes the people of genuine religious feelings facing the material interests of the majority.