Pip Donaghy and Kate Ashfield in Blasted at the Royal Court in 1995. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian Nathan, John (16 February 2016). "Directors Katie Mitchell and Yael Farber on extreme violence in 'Les Blancs' and 'Cleansed' ". The Independent. Psychosis is the final play by British playwright Sarah Kane. It was her last work, first staged at the Royal Court's Jerwood Theatre Upstairs on 23 June 2000, directed by James Macdonald, nearly one and a half years after Kane's death on 20 February 1999. The play has no explicit characters or stage directions. Stage productions of the play vary greatly, therefore, with between one and several actors in performance; the original production featured three actors. According to Kane's friend and fellow-playwright David Greig, the title of the play derives from the time, 4:48a.m., when Kane, in her depressed state, often woke. [1] Subject [ edit ]

But her champions saw a playwright challenging naturalistic theatre, pl Her plays were like Pulp Fiction reimagined for the stage. It was the rape and sex and violence that drew me in, but re-reading her work over and over, it was the enduring hope in the darkness that kept me enthralled. The landscapes and social hierarchies and characters of the work are dystopian and ugly, but not hopeless. There's a desperate search for love and salvation through the mire of life that cut right to the heart of humanity. Sarah Kane said "There's a Jacobean play with the stage direction 'Her spirit rises from her body and walks away, leaving her body behind.' Anyway, Shakespeare has a bear running across the stage in A Winter's Tale, and his stage craft was perfect". [8] a b "Blasted at The Royal Court Theatre". Royalcourttheatre.com. Royal Court Theatre Productions Limited. 12 January 1995 . Retrieved 16 April 2012. For the last three performances Grace was played by Sarah Kane as Suzan Sylvester suffered an injury.

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Joshua Pharo’s lighting is filled with shadows and silhouettes to create a brooding intensity and there are switches between light and dark as the characters try to find a way out of their despair. The script echoes everything from the Bible (“Glory be to the father”) to TS Eliot’s The Waste Land (“Hurry up please it’s time”) and Shakespeare’s Hamlet (“To die, to sleep”).

Sierz, Aleks (2001). In-yer-face theatre: British drama today. London: Faber and Faber. pp.120–121. ISBN 0-571-20049-4. Sierz, Aleks (24 May 2012). Modern British Playwriting: The 1990s: Voices, Documents, New Interpretations. Great Britain: Methuen Drama. pp.122–134. ISBN 9781408181331. Two men (Jeff Bone and Terry Smyth) and two women (Robin Hall and Julie Wood) deliver rapid fire speeches and snatches of dialogue, that dramatise, among other things, lust, desire, perversion, love and the need for autonomy. Although a little too busy in places, director Damon Wakelin's staging mostly helps his very able cast to make the rapid transitions of character and feeling required, and his lighting design brings the show to an effective, moving conclusion. Robin buys a box of chocolates for Grace, who had mentioned that her previous boyfriend had bought her chocolates. Tinker confiscates the box of chocolates and questions Robin about them, who says they are for Grace. Tinker stands above him and throws chocolates on the ground towards him, demanding that he eats them. Crying, Robin is force-fed the whole box of chocolates.In the first scene, a timid Graham approaches Tinker, who appears to be a drug dealer. He says he 'wants out' and also asks for drugs. Tinker refuses. They then have an argument about whether or not they are friends. Tinker eventually injects Graham with drugs and he overdoses and dies. a b "Corrections and clarifications column". The Guardian. 18 October 2005 . Retrieved 28 February 2021.

Reviewing the first production of Cleansed, the critic John Peter wrote about the nightmarish quality of the play:The pseudonym "Marie Kelvedon" was based on the village of Kelvedon Hatch, where Kane grew up. Kane included the following fictitious biography in the programme notes: Sarah Kane (3 February 1971 – 20 February 1999) was an English playwright, screenwriter and theatre director. She is known for her plays that deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, torture—both physical and psychological—and death. They are characterised by a poetic intensity, pared-down language, exploration of theatrical form and, in her earlier work, the use of extreme and violent stage action. Benedict, David (26 October 2020). "Remembering Sarah Kane: the poet with a gift for distilled intensity". The Stage. The Stage Media Company Limited . Retrieved 24 February 2021. Brantley, Ben (2008), "Humanity Gets Only a Bit Part", The New York Times , retrieved 1 January 2015, Now "Blasted", whose author died a suicide in 1999, has finally arrived in New York in a first-rate production that opened Thursday night at the Soho Rep on Walker Street, filling a significant gap in the history of contemporary theater here.