Palabras en la arena (Buero Vallejo)

  In 1949 the Spanish playwright Antonio Buero Vallejo (1916-2009) published a one-act play entitled Palabras en la arena (Words in the Sand), based on the story in Luke’s Gospel about the woman caught in adultery. 

  Interestingly, the character el galileo – Jesus, whom some call el Rabí – does not appear in the play; the story of his words in the sand is told by the servant La Fenicia to her mistress Noemi, the ostensibly adulterous wife of Asaf, the chief the Sanhedrin. Over and over in the play, the different male characters, which include a temple priest, a Pharisee, a Sadducee, and a scribe, challenge each other to reveal the words they saw el galileo write in the sand. Eventually most of the men confess:  the Pharisee has been called a lustful hypocrite, while the temple priest is named an atheist, and so on.  The play ends when Asaf accuses his wife of adultery and then kills her (offstage); only then is the word el galileo wrote about him in the sand revealed:

Silence.  Asaf collapses, and on his knees begins to chant monotonously.

Asaf:  I knew it… I knew it…

Joazar, the temple priest:  What did you know?

Matatías, the Pharisee, troubled:  She was cheating on you, right?

Asaf, absently: Huh?

Eliú, the scribe:  What did you know, Asaf?  What did you know?

Asaf:  He knew it.

Gadí, the Sadducee: Who?

Asaf:  Him.

Eliú:  The Galilean?

Asaf:  He knew it. (Pause.  They look at each other, worried.) He looked into my eyes with his own, sweet and terrible, and then…

Eliú, almost guessing:  So…?

Asaf:  He wrote it.

Pause.  The servant listens, rapt with attention.

Joazar:  Tell us what he wrote!

Matatías:  Perhaps… cruel?

Almost imperceptibly, Asaf begins to shake his head.

Gadí:  Violent?

Eliú:  Jealous?

Pause.  Asaf inclines his head.  They all wait, holding back, their eyes fixed on the nape of his neck.  He stifles a dry sob.

Asaf, his voice pregnant with the terrifying fatality he has brought upon himself:  Mur-der-er!

The servant kneels also, moaning.  The others look on with frightened eyes, and Destiny causes trembling to grip the group of elders surrounding the defeated man.

(Curtain)

--Antonio Buero Vallejo, 

Palabras en la arena (1949)

Image source 1:  Fr. Patrick Michaels, The Woman Caught in Adultery, courtesy of the artist, who notes that the men accusing the woman are masked -- they are focused on exposing her sin while concealing their own.
Image source 2:  Pieter Bruegel, Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery (oil on panel, 24cm x 34cm, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_and_the_woman_taken_in_adultery#/media/File:Christ_and_the_Woman_Taken_in_Adultery_Bruegel.jpg