Historia de una escalera is a three-act play in which Buero Vallejo analyzes post-war Spanish society with all of its injustices, untruths, and ruthlessness. The action takes place in a small apartment building with a stairway that leads from street level to the living quarters — a landing in the stairway is where residents often run into each other. Each of the three acts takes place at a particular time separated by 10 years: the first act right after the civil war, the second 10 years later, and the third 20 years later. The characters change; some die and others come into the story, but the routine of life in the building remains immutable.
«La escalera» is a symbol of times past. As a phrase in the play says, “Just as soon as something grows old, the young people only think to throw it away. But old things should be preserved!” The passage of time doesn’t reveal any real changes in the apartment community. The building remains dirty and beat up, although in the third act it undergoes superficial changes: the walls are painted, doors have buzzers, name plates appear for each apartment, and the windows have rhomboidal colored decorations. But the underlying conversations and confidences between characters on the stairway landing exchange the same information about political developments outside, show a renewal of consciousness within the working class of their struggles against mediocrity and poverty, and relate the same stories of love and indifference between people. The play captures unstintingly the social realism of the time, including the dull daily lives and poverty of lower middle class people, stuck with dreams of escaping from their situation that never come to pass amidst tears of disappointment that they wipe away. Love between various characters gives hope, but doesn’t mature into a lasting solution.