Víctor Ruiz Iriarte by Phyllis Zatlin Boring (review)

328 Book Reviews PHYLLIS ZATLIN BORING. Victor Ruiz friarte. Boston : Twayne Publishers 1980. Pp.151. In 1949 Antonio Buera Vallejo's Historia de una escalera (Story 0/ a Stairway ) and Victor Ruiz Iriarte's El aprendi1. de amante (The Apprentice Lover) were 00 the boards in Madrid. The first, a serious drama which dealt effectively with topical social questions. was said to herald a resurgence of Spanish dramaturgy after the dearth characteristic of the Civil War (1936-1939) and its difficult aftermath. The second play, a comedy of manners which allowed the audience to escape for a few hours from the dire social and political reality of post-Civil War Spain, does not figure in critical assessments of momentous dramas. Yet both works, each of which opened the real professional career of its creator through the recognition it elicited (critical in the case of Buero Vallejo 's play. commercial in that of Ruiz lriarte's), are important as markers of a polarity which has been typical of Spanish drama since its inception. As different as their plays are, Buero Vallejo and Ruiz lriarte's works continue to have a parallel existence on the Spanish stage. If the former have an appeal for those who seek commitment to a cause of social or political magnitude , the latter function with equal effectiveness for those who are willing to suspend disbelief and entertain the playwright's fantasy. Victor Ruiz lriarte continues to be one of the most popular playwrights in the Spanish theater, and popular is construed here not only as embraced by the pubHc but especially as dedicated to communion with the public, because he entertains his audience through plays that portray the human experience both in reality and in its potential for sublimation via fantasy. Humor. satire and games are tools he employs in this gambol. He is a master of the comedic whose acceptance and appeal can be judged by the fact that between 1951 and 1960 fourteen of his plays were presented in Madrid or Barcelona. But Ruiz lriarte is also a victim of his success as a popular playwright. He has suffered derision at the hands of critics who have pushed aside his work as trivial because they see it as lacking seriolls concern with the problems of his time (that is, it is not "committed theater" or theater of "social protest") or as sometimes seeking to evade or escape from that reality. Fortunately. there is now a current of revisionism towards plays once labeled unmeritorious on that basis. Today, Ruiz Iriarte"s reputation as a playwright among indigenous and foreign critics is higher than ever before. and he is wen on the road to recognition as one of the important figures in contemporary Spanish theater. Professor Zatlin Boring's study of Ruiz lriarte's drama is in the forefront of such recognition in the English-speaking world. Tn the opening chapter, she focuses on the "man of the theater" and. with the advantage of personal access to him through interviews and correspondence, places Ruiz lriarte in the social and artistic milieu of the times. She traces his career as a writer - of newspaper articles, drama criticism, plays, television and film scripts - from early struggles for recognition to his established position today; in the process, she highJights the numerous awards he has won in many fields of writing, including The National Theatre Priz.e in 1952, The National Television Prize in 1966 and The National Literature Prize in 1967. Book Reviews 329 Subsequent chapters scrutinize Ruiz lriartc's creative writing. with the exception of film scripts because they were done in various collaborations. Seven chapters are devoted to the plays, each marshaling the works into the proper category (poetic fantasies, satirical farces, comedies of manners, theatrical games. serious dramas and the later comedies); each chapter provides the plays' professional performance history in Spain and then concerns itself largely with plot synopses, with concise critical commentary interwoven. A separate chapter is given over to a discussion of Ruiz Iriarte's television scripts which are available in print, a small sampling of the more than one hundred that have been presented on Television Espanola (TVE), the national network . These scripts...