ECHO 3/2/06

The students walk into the room. They are young, none older then 21. I’ve forgotten how young that is, how awkward you are in the world. Most are incredibly shy and not very good communicators. Some play ignorance like a fashion accessory, some just wear a shell. It’s hard to get the scenes we are working on and examining full of energy, to motivate them and therefore us in the process; with two exceptions throughout the entire day. I am surprised, saddened, and by the middle of the afternoon, bored. I trot off in my mind, filling in gaps and watching swans come in to land at approximately the same height as the university building we are in, their heads extended and pushing onward in unison. We take a break as dusk begins to turn the light in the room. The students thank us sheepishly and leave. I recline across three chairs, tired and at an end, a cup of instant coffee (which I hate) propped on my chest. The other actor-cum-lecturer comments that all the scripts this afternoon have had a prostitute in as protagonist; she wonders why it is that these youngsters have such a preoccupation with the seedier side of life – because it’s what they know from the TV and because it makes for ‘good’ drama material, easy drama material. We enter into a discussion about evil. Had we ever experienced true evil? Silence for the first time all day as we pondered the most interesting question we’d had to deal in that time. She answered that fortunately she didn’t believe she had. I answered that I had. And it had been a surprise because it wasn’t singular, it wasn’t personal, it was very much a collective experience of events in one particular place. I had seen it in faces and heard it in voices and felt it at the end of numerous fists. She was curious where it had been, but I couldn’t bring myself to reveal the location and I won’t here either. You’ll know it if you end up there.