Saturday 28th March Bartolome Mitre

Have moved into Jorge’s. The neighbourhood has changed. I knew it had changed, but didn’t realise quite how much. Last night, after a long 2am walk, I reached Plaza Independencia, the gateway to the Ciudad Vieja, my new and former home. Back in the day, the Plaza by night was pretty much deserted. There was a stray dog which would faithfully accompany me across the square as I weaved my way home. Last night it was like Piccadilly Circus. Or the Ramblas in Barcelona, the only equivalent I can think of. The old town itself, once you’d crossed the square, was a riot. Queues of up to a hundred waiting to get into the clubs or the ‘disco bars’. Streets overrun with careering youth. Had to fight my way through in order to get down Bartolome Mitre and find my way to my bed.

On Friday we did our third run, which was a big improvement on the second. Omar and Karina watched and seemed reasonably impressed. It came in at under two hours, which seems OK to me. Fernando still struggling a little with 1, and 4 still rough, but considerably better all in all.

Friday night I went out drinking with Anibal and Leandro until 4am, a session which included a Quixotic search for a party, Anibal driving along the Rambla and then down some weird, rutted track, all to no avail, before abandoning the quest and returning for a last beer and a grappa.



Then, after five hours sleep, I had the Blasted workshop at 11. The group has halved in size, not a bad thing when you’re getting people to perform oral sex, or gay rape, or the removal of eyes, first thing in the morning. The students impressed with their lack of inhibition, and their search to locate the tenderness which lurks alongside the savagery, and which, it seemed to me, is the key to the work. That single workshop alone was worth the trip.



In the afternoon I moved, then returned with Anibal to the strange strip of land near Punta Carretas we’d visited in the middle of the night. He took me to a little restaurant there, in an old Club de Pesca. I ate fish for lunch sitting on the terrace surrounded by boats.

In the rehearsal we worked through notes from the run. It’s all cleaning and tidying now, taking little sections and tweaking them. Though I did get V&A to play a game of blind man’s buff at one point, a game which V had never played before, to my surprise, having always suspected it was basically universal.