Tragedy

'Le coeur est un crystal' Krikor told us last week in the first of our lessons on tragedy. Angular- Brilliant-pure?

Across the ceiling of the grand salle a network of elastics has been constructed to form a star of David and then four elasticated cords hung from points of the internal square. When these were pulled on and the four pullers moved round the space above them a series of gemometric patterns tangled and untangled themselves and then eventually, when it was juste enough, people, reacting to the constantly changing shapes. This produced some incredibly powerful improvisations, often not thought out with the head, but instinctive and therefore inventive and often surprising. It worked like a big neutral mask. You could really see when people started pushing or forcing.

On Thursday we did speeches with Paola. Real people's speeches from a podium in the Grand Salle. We saw Hitler, Mussolini and St Juste. All rather scary, powerful.

Otherwise everyone is tired with colds and nasty bugs abounding. But most of all tired. What are we? Week 5 or 6? No wonder. I'm planning to sleep and write all weekend and watch the enormous TV in the enormous flat where I'll be dog-sitting next week.