About the work
Epistolary drama in 33 letters by French playwright Christian Palustran, first staged in 1988 at the Caveau de la Roëlle in Nancy, directed by Patrick Schoenstein. Palustran set himself the challenge of writing a drama made up entirely of letters that would still carry suspense and emotional development.
Plot
An anonymous student who signs only as "X" writes to her mathematics teacher with a question about infinity, asking her to slip the answer back among the corrected homework. Over the course of a school year, the initially hesitant correspondence grows into an increasingly close and conflicted relationship between the two, eventually drawing in the girl's parents and the school administration.
Cultural significance
The play has been described as a "detective puzzle in letter form" and has since been translated into several languages and staged internationally, including in Belgium, Spain, Romania and the United States, among them the New York International Fringe Festival in 2002. It remains one of Palustran's most frequently performed works for young audiences.