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CHOICE Review

The fifth in a series of contemporary Spanish plays published by Estreno, this English version of M'usica cercana (1990) is a readable and accurate translation of Buero's domestic tragedy, a work staged in the playwright's 74th year of life, almost half a century after his celebrated classic, Historia de una escalera (1950). Regrettably, Holt's translation of the play's title casts a prosaic flatness on an otherwise poetic plane (I would have preferred something like "Intimate Music" or "Beckoning Music"), and four bothersome typographical errors mar an otherwise clean script. The play is divided into two equal parts and involves five speaking characters. It contains Buero's familiar commitment to the revelation of social injustice juxtaposed with inner reality; he successfully portrays the pain inflicted on other individuals by the deceptions, hypocrisy, and selfish interests of his protagonist. The play is especially laden with compelling temporal shifts, expressionistic techniques, evocative musical passages, and credible Spanish characterizations. General; upper-division undergraduate. D. R. McKay; University of Colorado at Colorado Springs