Experiencing Kane: an affective analysis of Sarah Kane's 'experiential' theatre in performance

The article argues for a phenomenological approach to Kane's work in performance. It notes the rise in productions of Kane's work from 2004, and focuses on productions of Crave by 11th Hour Theatre in Melbourne and Acquiesce Speck in Sydney.

Postdramatisme et esthétique de l’indécidabilité dans Cleansed et Phaedra’s Love de Sarah Kane

Face à l’opacité interprétative et la faillite du langage auxquelles nous nous heurtons dans l’analyse des œuvres-chocs de Sarah Kane, quelle approche nous permettrait de commenter exhaustivement les formes et les moyens mis en œuvre par la dramaturge pour imprimer sa marque dans l’esprit du spectateur contemporain? Le théâtre postdramatique, paradigme élaboré par Hans-Thies Lehmann, présenterait a priori un dispositif pertinent pour faire lumière sur des problématiques contemporaines cruciales en jeu dans l’œuvre de Kane. Aucunement univoque, car soumis à l’interprétation et à l’engagement du spectateur, le caractère politique des pièces, pourtant spectral, s’avère ici essentiel. Ce spectre politique se laisse percevoir à travers le prisme de la violence et la nécessité du choc semble être son parti pris pour redéfinir le rôle du théâtre dans nos sociétés modernes caractérisées par la circulation massive des images à travers les nouveaux médias. Un lien de coresponsabilité de l’artiste et du spectateur se crée: l’œuvre nous interroge, spectateur/lecteur, sur la part mystérieuse de ce fond de cruauté humaine et sur notre complicité dans l’omniprésence de la violence à travers la consommation de ses produits. Mettant en relief les caractères transgressifs venant bousculer nos affects à travers des références à la « culture d’en bas » et un exercice des limites du spectaculaire centré sur l’obscène et le détournement des codes de la pornographie, cette lecture postdramatique de Cleansed et de Phaedra’s love entend restituer à l’œuvre de Kane son énergie pour un changement qui passe par un éveil des sens.

Sarah Kane: Cool Britannia's reluctant feminist

Aleks Sierz in his important survey of mid 1990s drama has identified the plays of Sarah Kane as exemplars of what he terms ‘In-Yer Face’ theatre. Sierz argues that Kane and her contemporaries such as Mark Ravenhill and Judy Upton represent a break with the ideological concerns of the previous generation of playwrights such as Doug Lucie and Stephen Lowe, whose work was shaped through recognizable political concerns, often in direct opposition to Thatcherism. In contrast Sarah Kane and her generation have frequently been seen as literary embodiments of ‘Thatcher’s Children’, whereby following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the inertia of the Major years, their drama eschews a recognizable political position, and seems more preoccupied with the plight of individuals cut adrift from society. In the case of Sarah Kane her frequently quoted statement, ‘I have no responsibility as a woman writer because I don’t believe there’s such a thing’, has compounded this perception. Moreover, its dogmatism also echoes the infamous comments attributed to Mrs Thatcher regarding the role of the individual to society. However, this article seeks to reassess Kane’s position as a woman writer and will argue that her drama is positioned somewhere between the female playwrights who emerged after 1979 such as Sarah Daniels, Timberlake Wertenbaker and Clare McIntyre, whose drama was distinguished by overtly feminist concerns, and its subsequent breakdown, best exemplified by the brief cultural moment associated with the newly elected Blair government known as ‘Cool Britannia’. Drawing on a variety of sources, including Kane’s unpublished monologues, written while she was a student just after Mrs Thatcher left office, this paper will argue that far from being an exponent of post-feminism, Kane’s drama frequently revisits and is influenced by the generation of dramatists whose work was forged out the sharp ideological positions that characterized the 1980s and a direct consequence of Thatcherism.

'Love me or kill me’: Sarah Kane & the theatre of extremes

Monograph on the playwright Sarah Kane

'Out Vile Jelly': Sarah Kane's 'Blasted' & Shakespeare's 'King Lear'

Sarah Kane's notorious 1995 debut, Blasted, has been widely though belatedly recognized as a defining example of experiential or ‘in-yer-face’ theatre. However, Graham Saunders here argues that the best playwrights not only innovate in use of language and dramatic form, but also rewrite the classic plays of the past. He believes that too much stress has been placed on the play's radical structure and contemporary sensibility, with the effect of obscuring the influence of Shakespearean tradition on its genesis and content. He clarifies Kane's gradually dawning awareness of the influence of Shakespeare's King Lear on her work and how elements of that tragedy were rewritten in terms of dialogue, recast thematically, and reworked in terms of theatrical image. He sees Blasted as both a response to contemporary reality and an engagement with the history of drama. Graham Saunders is Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of the West of England, Bristol, and author of the first full-length study of Kane's work: ‘Love Me or Kill Me’: Sarah Kane and the Theatre of Extremes (Manchester University Press, 2002). An earlier version of this article was given as a paper at the ‘Crucible of Cultures: Anglophone Drama at the Dawn of a New Millennium’ conference in Brussels, May 2001. Saunders is currently working on articles about Samuel Beckett and Edward Bond

Sarah Kane: Cool Britannia’s reluctant feminist

Aleks Sierz in his important survey of mid 1990s drama has identified the plays of Sarah Kane as exemplars of what he terms ‘In-Yer Face’ theatre. Sierz argues that Kane and her contemporaries such as Mark Ravenhill and Judy Upton represent a break with the ideological concerns of the previous generation of playwrights such as Doug Lucie and Stephen Lowe, whose work was shaped through recognizable political concerns, often in direct opposition to Thatcherism. In contrast Sarah Kane and her generation have frequently been seen as literary embodiments of ‘Thatcher’s Children’, whereby following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the inertia of the Major years, their drama eschews a recognizable political position, and seems more preoccupied with the plight of individuals cut adrift from society. In the case of Sarah Kane her frequently quoted statement, ‘I have no responsibility as a woman writer because I don’t believe there’s such a thing’, has compounded this perception. Moreover, its dogmatism also echoes the infamous comments attributed to Mrs Thatcher regarding the role of the individual to society. However, this article seeks to reassess Kane’s position as a woman writer and will argue that her drama is positioned somewhere between the female playwrights who emerged after 1979 such as Sarah Daniels, Timberlake Wertenbaker and Clare McIntyre, whose drama was distinguished by overtly feminist concerns, and its subsequent breakdown, best exemplified by the brief cultural moment associated with the newly elected Blair government known as ‘Cool Britannia’. Drawing on a variety of sources, including Kane’s unpublished monologues, written while she was a student just after Mrs Thatcher left office, this paper will argue that far from being an exponent of post-feminism, Kane’s drama frequently revisits and is influenced by the generation of dramatists whose work was forged out the sharp ideological positions that characterized the 1980s and a direct consequence of Thatcherism.

Il teatro di Sarah Kane fra biografia, performance e scrittura

Il presente studio si propone come una rilettura del profilo drammaturgico e teatrale di Sarah Kane a partire dalla ricostruzione e integrazione dei dati biografici e delle interazioni artistiche e personali dell’autrice. Lo studio si articola in due sezioni: in un primo momento esso inquadra contestualmente la drammaturgia inglese del secondo dopoguerra, origine della prima generazione dei Giovani Arrabbiati e sostrato della trasformazione teatrale britannica degli anni Novanta. La seconda sezione, invece, si articola come un’indagine biografica della vita della Kane scandita da documenti e immagini inediti. Tali immagini restituiscono una preziosa testimonianza dei primi spettacoli giovanili, delle prime regie e del percorso professionale maturo della drammaturga/regista, oltre a far luce sulla sua vita personale e famigliare e sugli influssi della stessa sul suo teatro. Inoltre, lo studio approfondito delle vicende biografiche dell’autrice ridisegna le caratteristiche fondanti dell'universo teatrale britannico comprendendo il valore che hanno: i teatri, la critica giornalistica e le strutture universitarie, per la configurazione del sistema teatrale.

Fragmentos aturdidos. La hibridación genérico-discursiva en 4.48 Psychosis de Sarah Kane

El presente trabajo se propone reflexionar sobre las principales problemáticas en torno a la representación de la subjetividad desplegadas en la obra de la dramaturga británica Sarah Kane a partir del análisis de su último drama, 4.48 Psychosis (1999). Con esta obra Kane lleva al extremo la búsqueda de colapsar ciertos límites para hacer de la forma y del contenido una misma cosa. La naturaleza fragmentaria del texto, la ausencia de trama o anécdota y la imposibilidad de identificar la presencia de uno o más personajes en escena, colaboran en la creación de esa atmósfera densa y ambigua que se correlaciona con el cuadro patológico del yo anticipado en el título de la pieza. Asimismo, la puesta en funcionamiento de estrategias de hibridación genérica, de apropiación, parodia y reescritura de diferentes modalidades discursivas (monólogos líricos, conversaciones entre doctor y paciente, el discurso de los cuestionarios médicos, de la psiquiatría y de las historias clínicas, citas extraídas de literatura de autoayuda o del libro bíblico del Apocalipsis, etc.) se constituye como práctica privilegiada para reflejar el descentramiento y la dispersión del sujeto y el borramiento de los límites entre realidad- ficción, sueño-vigilia, yo-otro

Los héroes han muerto : La revisión de la tragedia de Séneca en "Phaedras Love", de Sarah Kane

La literatura, como ya lo afirmaba Gérard Genette, no es nada más ni nada menos que un palimpsesto. Toda creación literaria se inscribe irremediablemente en una tradición y retoma temas o conflictos ya enunciados por otras obras anteriores. Podríamos decir que existen aspectos de la condición humana que serán revisitados una y otra vez sin caer en la repetición, que presentan aún "mucha tela por cortar" y que se resignifican en los diferentes contextos sociohistóricos en que son planteados. Los mitos griegos han sido durante siglos un material particularmente rico y explotado por diferentes autores. Es el caso del mito de Fedra, cuyo primer antecedente del que nos queda evidencia es la tragedia Hipólito de Eurípides (del siglo V a.C., de la cual existieron dos versiones pero sólo se conserva una), reescrito (siguiendo el concepto romano de aemulatio) en Fedra por el romano Séneca casi cinco siglos más tarde y del que se han producido hasta el día de hoy gran cantidad de versiones. Una de estas es la obra de Sarah Kane, Phaedra's Love. El presente trabajo es un análisis de dicha obra como ejemplo de la narrativa del teatro británico in-yer-face de finales del siglo XX. Una obra cruda que incomoda al lector espectador y echa por tierra con las instituciones, los valores enunciados y lo sagrado de las sociedades modernas

Los héroes han muerto : La revisión de la tragedia de Séneca en "Phaedras Love", de Sarah Kane

La literatura, como ya lo afirmaba Gérard Genette, no es nada más ni nada menos que un palimpsesto. Toda creación literaria se inscribe irremediablemente en una tradición y retoma temas o conflictos ya enunciados por otras obras anteriores. Podríamos decir que existen aspectos de la condición humana que serán revisitados una y otra vez sin caer en la repetición, que presentan aún "mucha tela por cortar" y que se resignifican en los diferentes contextos sociohistóricos en que son planteados. Los mitos griegos han sido durante siglos un material particularmente rico y explotado por diferentes autores. Es el caso del mito de Fedra, cuyo primer antecedente del que nos queda evidencia es la tragedia Hipólito de Eurípides (del siglo V a.C., de la cual existieron dos versiones pero sólo se conserva una), reescrito (siguiendo el concepto romano de aemulatio) en Fedra por el romano Séneca casi cinco siglos más tarde y del que se han producido hasta el día de hoy gran cantidad de versiones. Una de estas es la obra de Sarah Kane, Phaedra's Love. El presente trabajo es un análisis de dicha obra como ejemplo de la narrativa del teatro británico in-yer-face de finales del siglo XX. Una obra cruda que incomoda al lector espectador y echa por tierra con las instituciones, los valores enunciados y lo sagrado de las sociedades modernas