Blasted is sarah kanes first fulllength play which opened in 1995 and was the sensation of that years theatre season, making frontpage headlines and outraging some critics who thought her premise that there was a connection between a rape in a leeds hotel room and the hellish devastation of civil war was simply an attempt to shock audiences. To read just click on the download at the bottom of this page. Cate and ians world is intact and normal, with everyday items being introduced such as room service. Sarah kanes role in the inyerface theatre rakuten kobo. A parable about love in a time of madness, cleansed is full of metaphors of addiction, need, loss and suffering sierz 114. Ian is a bigot and manipulates cate into doing what he wants, while cate is fragile and seemingly simpleminded. Amateur video shot at the last performance, semio theatre, athensgreece january 2015 about the performance. Sarah kanes first play, blasted, concerned ian and cate, a middleaged racist journalist and a childlike woman, who enter a leeds hotel room together years after the end of an affair. This literality is a key feature in sarah kanes plays. Set in an institution designed to rid society of its undesirables, according to the cover of the first edition of the playtext, a group of inmates try to save themselves through love. E ven by her own standards, sarah kanes 1998 play is an unusually punishing experience that posits a world in which licensed cruelty tests love to its limits. Michelle terry and graham butler as grace and graham in cleansed. Complete plays study guide word buy and download the sarah kane.
Scene 18 of cleansed by sarah kane presented by thinking cap theatre in fort lauderdale, fl at empire stage. Instead of interpreting any of her plays, the physical theatre performance acts out her contradictory and lonesome personality. The university of birminghams postgraduate course in playwriting studies was founded by dramatist david edgar in 1989. Cleansed, a drama in twenty scenes, is sarah kanes third play. Heres a look at why cleansed is a challenge for actors and directors, how the cast tackled the script in the rehearsal room, and what kane might have intended by including seemingly impossible stage directions. They go through various routines, with ian drinking excessively. They are characterised by a poetic intensity, pareddown language, exploration of theatrical form and, in her earlier work, the use of extreme and violent stage action. Sarah kane 3 february 1971 20 february 1999 was an english playwright.
She published five plays, blasted, phaedras love, cleansed, crave, and 4. I think cleansed more than any of my other plays uses violence as metaphor sarah kane, interview with nils tabert 1998 in a much underrated volume of critical essays feminism meets queer theory. Crave is a oneact play by british playwright sarah kane. I directed this short film written by sarah kane, in 1996. Sarah kane was a contemporary writer with a classical sensibility who created a theatre of great moments of beauty and cruelty, a theatre to which it was only possible to respond with a sense of awe. Opening of cleansed by sarah kane by 2nd year students from salford uni directed by paula mor. Sarah kanes cleansed is a play of splayed ribs, the heart beneath exposed and still twitching. When sarah kanes first play blasted was staged at the royal court theatre. Guess ill look for performances of it on youtube in time. She is best known for the extraordinary public controversy over blasted, her first play which, like subsequent works from her, were shocking and defining moments in theater. Sarah kanes cleansed was produced at the national theatre in 2016, directed by katie mitchell. Blasted has been labelled as one of the landmark plays of postwar british theatre, achieving its iconic status and, indeed, its notoriety, very quickly.
Her plays deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, torture both physical and psychological and death. Here, the high rationalist, tinker, sets out to research, test and document the extremes. Decoding sarah kane dimensions of metaphoricity in cleansed. Sarah kanes cleansed, directed by patrick kennelly youtube. So aleks sierz characterizes one of the big three of inyerface theatre sarah kane with her shocking plots and even more shocking word choice for their descriptions. In the first of two films in our sarah kane collection, we explore blasted, phaedras love and cleansed.
On several occasions she made mention of a piece of drama that. Because this show i promise you this is true will get under your skin. When the play premiered at the royal court in april 1998, kane played the part of grace for the last three. Sarah kane project gutenberg selfpublishing ebooks. Cleansed premiered at the royal court theatre in spring 1998. As an insurgent siege rails outside, ian tries to convince cate to have sex with him. Heres a look at why sarah kane s cleansed is a challenge for actors and directors, and what kane might have intended by including seemingly impossible stage directions. This article investigates sarah kanes dramaturgy and its relation to her portrayal of mental illness and madness, drawing on the performance context of katie mitchells cleansed by the national theatre 2016. Thanks to simon kane for up to date information on official. Sarah kanes tender and violent fable is set in an institution designed to rid society of its undesirables. The audience witnesses literary metaphors that have come into being on stage, revolving around the issue of love and warviolence. A middleaged journalist named ian, and cate, a young woman half his age, enter an expensive hotel room in leeds. Sarah kanes suicide in 1999 consolidated a process of singlingout that had begun four years earlier with the national outrage initiated by the medias scandalised response to the premiere of blasted.
In this process sarah kanes texts have been performed all over the world. Reading kanes text and mitchells direction in a productive tension with one another, it suggests that mitchell introduced new dramatic elements which radically alter the kind. The lyrics to icelandic singer bjorks song an echo, a stain, released on the album. The national theatres production of sarah kanes cleansed should be seen by anyone who thinks that theatre is boring, or oldfashioned, or irrelevant, or just not for them.
Sarah kane s tender and violent fable is set in an institution designed to rid society of its undesirables. What does the term inyerface, first applied by the theatre critic alex sierz to an extravagant piece of british theatre of the nineties, signify. Drugaddicted graham, gay couple rod and carl, prostitute grace. Sarah kane, produced by the creative association nomadi, is based on an honest conversation between its authors and the talented english playwright sarah kane.
Heres a look at why cleansed is a challenge for actors and directors, how the cast tackled the. Cleansed 2003 trailer by waxfactory on vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them. You can read more about it on my website at uk look under productions skin, also some articles on my blog musings and dreamings. Cleansed is the third play by the english playwright sarah kane. Sarah kane s cleansed was produced at the national theatre in 2016, directed by katie mitchell.
In this halfhour documentary, i explore the work of sarah kane from blasted to her final, posthumous performance text 4. Copy of sarah kane, cleansed drama workshop 2015 youtube. Heres a look at why sarah kanes cleansed is a challenge for actors and directors, and what kane might have intended by. And i want to play hideandseek and give you my clothes and tell you i like your shoes and sit on the steps while you take a bath and massage your neck and kiss your feet and hold your hand and go for a meal and not mind when you eat my food and meet you at rudys and talk about the day and type up your letters and carry your boxes and laugh at your paranoia and. Even more than those other two plays, this minimalist script given flesh and form by the imagination of director nicole stoddard is a harrowing and frankly upsetting descent into hell jammed with random sadistic violence.
It is no surprise that the national has been tweeting, writing, broadcasting the news that some spectators are leaving sarah kanes cleansed in disgust, while others have been fainting with. The play is set in a university which has been converted into some form of bizarre institution under the rule of the sadistic tinker. Sarah kane 3 february 1971 20 february 1999 was an english playwright who is known for her plays that deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, tortureboth physical and psychologicaland death. Every time i read a play by sarah kane, i have the same feeling. When cleansed opened in the dorfman theatre on 16 february, it became the first piece by sarah kane to be performed at the national. It was first performed in 1998 at the royal court theatre downstairs in london. Sarah kane possessed an honest and direct approach to theatre, and was forthcoming in public about her vision for the medium.
This stunning play from the controversial author of blasted premiered at t. Lisa natoli interviews byron katie and stephen mitchell good audio duration. Throughout, ians primary goal is to seduce cate, but she resists him at every turn. Kanes first play blasted caused major controversy, furore and acclaim amongst critics and throughout the theatre world publisher. The play was called cleansed and the playwright was sarah kane. It features interviews with her agent and friend mel kenyon, director james macdonald, writer mark ravenhill, and her brother simon kane. This student edition of sarah kanes seminal play blasted features expert and helpful annotation and is an accessible guide for anyone studying or.
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