Born on the 3 rd of February 1971 and committed suicide on the 20th of February 1999 17 days after her 28 th birthday Throughout her childhood she was a devout Christian until she reached adolescence where she rejected her parents imposed religious teachings ID: 816218
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Slide1
Sarah Kane
Researched by Paige Jewell
Slide2Born on the 3
rd
of February, 1971, and committed suicide on the 20th of February, 1999. 17 days after her 28
th
birthday.
Throughout her childhood, she was a devout Christian, until she reached adolescence where she rejected her parents’ imposed religious teachings.
She studied her BA in Drama at Bristol University, before completing her MA in play-writing at Birmingham University under the tuition of David Edgar, a renowned playwright and writer.
She wrote five plays, and a short-film script called ‘Skin’. Her plays, in order, are: ‘Blasted’, ‘Phaedra’s Love’, ‘Cleansed’, ‘Crave’, and finally, ‘4:48 Psychosis
’.
Slide3‘Skin’
An eleven minute short-film, that was written as a screenplay by Kane in 1995, it was released at in September in the same year of its production.
Starring
Ewen
Bremner, and Marcia Rose, and directed by Vincent O’Connellhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2ZjplLullc
Slide4‘Blasted’
Written by Kane and performed at The Royal Court in 1995.
Based on her response to the war and extreme violence and genocide that occurred throughout the Bosnian war.
Attacked by critics for it’s controversial issues and graphic depictions and stage actions of the extreme violence that took place.
Slide5‘Phaedra’s Love’
Written and performed at London’s Gate Theatre in 1996.
Loosely based on Seneca The Younger’s ‘Phaedra’- Seneca was a Roman philosopher, best known for his play ‘Medea’.
Focuses more on Hippolytus, Phaedra’s step-son and love interest, whereas the original centred around Phaedra herself.
Slide6‘Cleansed’
First performance took place in 1998 at The Royal Court.
Directed by James MacDonald.
It became infamous for its boundary-breaking stage directions, which are written in such a way that they have been interpreted in a unique way by each director who takes lead on the play: e.g. ‘a sunflower pushes through the floor and grows above their heads’
Slide7‘Crave’
First performed in 1998 by the theatre company ‘Paines Plough’ at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburg.
Directed by Vicky Featherstone, Kane originally wrote this under the pseudonym ‘Marie Kelvedon’, in order to avoid the stigma of her notoriety for depicting explicit violence on stage, since ‘Crave’ was a drastic change in style to the stylised, organised, highly specific style of playwriting her first few plays displayed.
Each character is only identified by a single letter of the alphabet.
Slide8‘4:48 Psychosis’
‘4:48 Psychosis’ was her only play to be published post-
humously
, and is supposedly named after the time at which Kane often awoke in the morning during her treatment at a hospital for her mental health issues.
Directed by James MacDonald, first performed at The Royal Court in autumn 2000, almost a year and a half after Kane’s passing. Like with ‘Crave’, there’s no explicit stage directions, and this time there is no specified character, and no indication of how many people are supposed to perform the play.
Slide9What others have said about Sarah Kane:
Mark Ravenhill wrote an obituary for The Independent on the 23
rd
of February 1999, and reading through it, these are the quotes that struck me the most:
“the austere beauty of Kane’s work was a shock to the system”Quoting Kane indirectly: “if you are saying you can’t represent something, you are saying you can’t talk about it, you are denying its existence”Quoting Kane indirectly about performing instead of the lead actor during Cleansed: “it’s not like being in your own play, because that play was written by someone who had hope”
Slide10What others have said about Sarah Kane:
Daniel Evans wrote an article for The Independent in January 2015, on working closely with Kane during the last few years of her life
:
“Sarah’s acting style is unadorned and raw”
On Kane’s performing in stead of the lead actor in Cleansed: “she was fearless and connected”Aleks Sierz wrote for In-Yer-Face Theatre: “precocious but self-destructive young talent whose death changed the way we look at her work”
Slide11Bibliography
http://
www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/sarah-kane-why-the-iconic-playwright-who-committed-suicide-is-as-controversial-as-ever-10003985.html
https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Kane#4.48_Psychosishttp://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-sarah-kane-1072624.html
http://
www.inyerfacetheatre.com/archive7.html
http://www.danrebellato.co.uk/sarah-kane-documentary
/
https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2ZjplLullc
https://
www.goodreads.com/book/show/414737.Crave
http://
www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-sarah-kane-1072624.html
http://
www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/sarah-kane-why-the-iconic-playwright-who-committed-suicide-is-as-controversial-as-ever-10003985.html