Who could not have been captivated by the most exciting chapter in the eurozone drama thus far, as it culminated on Monday with a bailout proposal that may preserve the union and cast prime minister Alexis Tsipras as a symbol of the great humiliation of Greece?
The script emerging from the 14-hour talks that announced the new terms of solidarity seemed to be drawn from near-Shakespearean levels of bombast — or at least from the work of Elia Kazan, the late screenwriter and director (of Greek parentage, as it happens) who brought us such classics as On the Waterfront and East of Eden.
Such drama. Such raw emotional expression. As I readaccounts of Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, barring the doors and insisting that a path must be found through the impasse; and French finance minister Michel Sapin’s call that everyone “get it all out” and air their private grudges; of German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble thundering that he was “not an idiot” to Mario Draghi, it was hard not to imagine the sharpening of pencils in writing rooms the world over. Who will be first to make their dramatic contribution to “Grexit: the meeting that nearly broke the union”? Surely, Peter Morgan must now be wondering about the potential for a fly-on-the-wall-style account of the crucifixion of Tsipras, as the talks were described by a senior eurozone official.