In spite of the Franco regime censorship, and after an initial almost total purge that meant exile to many of the top intellectuals and artists, the evolutionary process of peninsular Spanish art and culture did not stop to a complete standstill. During the 40"s and 50"s a renewal movement took place, and the three playwrights and their plays included in this volume were of utmost importance to it. The case of Arrabal, premiered outside the Spanish borders and in French, though most of his production was conceived and written initially in Spanish, is a perfect example of how Spanish literature kept its liveliness, even in exile. These three plays also share the fact of being tragedies, a very uncommon characteristic in Spanish theatre, specially so during the years in which comedy ruled as a very convenient way of escaping the dramatic socio-political surrounding reality. The renewal impulse in Spanish theatre started in 1945. That year the «Arte Nuevo» group was established, and in...