Sarah Kane facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Sarah Kane
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| Born | 3 February 1971 Brentwood, Essex, England |
| Died | 20 February 1999 (aged 28) Camberwell, London, England |
| Occupation | Dramatist, theatre director |
| Language | English |
| Alma mater | University of Bristol (BA) University of Birmingham (MA) |
| Literary movement | In-yer-face theatre |
| Notable works |
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Sarah Kane (born February 3, 1971 – died February 20, 1999) was an English playwright, screenwriter, and theatre director. She is known for her plays that explore themes of love, strong emotions, and life's challenges. Her works are famous for their poetic style, simple language, and new ways of telling stories on stage. In her earlier plays, she sometimes used very powerful and intense scenes.
Sarah Kane and people who study her work have said that she was inspired by expressionist theatre (a style that shows feelings rather than reality) and Jacobean tragedy (plays from a certain time in English history). A critic named Aleks Sierz described her work as part of a bold style of drama called "in-yer-face theatre". This style often aimed to challenge the audience directly.
Kane's published works include five plays, a short film called Skin, and two articles for The Guardian newspaper.
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Life of Sarah Kane
Sarah Kane was born in Brentwood, Essex, England. She grew up in a religious family. As a teenager, she was a committed Christian, but she later changed her views. After attending Shenfield High School, she studied drama at Bristol University. She graduated in 1992. Then, she went on to get her MA degree in playwriting at the University of Birmingham. Her teacher there was the famous playwright David Edgar.
Kane once said that Jeremy Weller's play Mad was "the one piece of theatre that changed my life."
Sarah Kane wrote consistently throughout her adult life. For one year, she worked as a writer-in-residence for Paines Plough. This is a theatre company that helps new writers. She actively encouraged other writers during her time there. Before that, she briefly worked as a literary assistant for the Bush Theatre in London.
Sarah Kane's Creative Works
Kane originally wanted to be a poet. However, she decided that poetry wasn't the best way to share her thoughts and feelings. She wrote that she was drawn to the stage because "theatre has no memory." This means that theatre is very much about the present moment. She hoped that someone in a dark room would show her an image that would stay in her mind.
Blasted Play
Kane's first play was Blasted. She wrote the first two scenes while she was a student in Birmingham. These scenes were performed for the public. An agent named Mel Kenyon was in the audience. She later became Kane's agent. Kenyon suggested that Kane show her work to the Royal Court Theatre in London. The completed play opened at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in 1995. It was directed by James Macdonald.
The play starts in a realistic, but troubling, setting. Then, it changes into a series of disturbing scenes. Kane admired the work of another playwright, Edward Bond. He publicly defended Kane's play and her talent. Other playwrights Kane liked included Samuel Beckett, Howard Barker, and Georg Büchner. She later directed Büchner's play Woyzeck in London in 1997.
Blasted received strong criticism from the British press at first. However, other playwrights like Martin Crimp, Harold Pinter (who became her friend), and Caryl Churchill praised it. Churchill even called it "rather a tender play." People later saw that the play made connections between personal conflict and the war in Bosnia. It also linked emotional struggles with physical ones.
Blasted was performed again in 2001 at the Royal Court. The assistant director, Joseph Hill-Gibbins, explained that the play's message comes from its changing styles. It starts in an English industrial town and then suddenly moves to a war zone. This shift helps to build the play's argument. Critic Ken Urban said that for Kane, difficult situations are not just ideas. They are very real, like reality made bigger.
Skin Film Project
Skin was an eleven-minute film that Sarah Kane wrote for Channel 4. This is a British TV station. It was first shown at the London Film Festival in October 1995. Channel 4 then showed it on TV in 1997. The film was directed by Vincent O'Connell. It starred actors like Ewen Bremner, Marcia Rose, Yemi Ajibade, and James Bannon.
Phaedra's Love Play
The Gate Theatre in London asked Kane to write a play inspired by a classic story. Phaedra's Love was loosely based on the ancient play Phaedra by Seneca. However, Kane set her version in modern times. In this new telling of the myth, it is Hippolytus, not Phaedra, who is the main character. Kane changed the classical tradition by showing intense actions on stage instead of just describing them. The play has some of Kane's most clever and sharp dialogue. Kane herself called it "my comedy." She directed its first performance at the Gate Theatre in 1996.
Cleansed Play
Cleansed first opened at the Royal Court's theatre downstairs in April 1998. It was directed by James Macdonald. At the time, this was the most expensive play ever produced by the Royal Court. Kane said that the play was partly inspired by a book by Roland Barthes. In the book, Barthes suggests that the feeling of a rejected lover is similar to that of a prisoner. The play was performed at the National Theatre in London in 2016. This was the first time any of Kane's work had been shown there.
Crave Play
People's opinions about Kane's work began to change with her fourth play, Crave. This play was directed by Vicky Featherstone and presented by Paines Plough. It opened at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh in 1998. The play was performed under the name Marie Kelvedon. Kane used this name partly because she found it amusing. Also, she wanted the play to be judged without people thinking about her previous, sometimes controversial, reputation. "Marie" was Kane's middle name, and she grew up in a town called Kelvedon Hatch in Essex.
Crave was different from Kane's earlier plays. It moved away from showing intense actions on stage. Instead, it used a freer, more poetic writing style. Sometimes, it was inspired by her reading of the Bible and T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land. The play has four characters, each known only by a letter. It doesn't have a clear story or plot. Unlike her earlier works, it doesn't give specific instructions for what actors should do or where the play is set. This might have been influenced by Martin Crimp's 1997 play Attempts on Her Life, which also didn't have a clear setting or story. Kane had written about how much she admired Crimp's new ideas for play structure. The play also uses many references to other texts and ideas. At the time, Kane felt it was her "most despairing" play. She wrote it when she had lost "faith in love."
4.48 Psychosis Play
Her last play, 4.48 Psychosis, was finished shortly before she passed away. It was performed in 2000 at the Royal Court, directed by James Macdonald. This is Kane's shortest and most broken-up play. It doesn't have a clear plot or specific characters. It also doesn't say how many actors should perform the play. Kane wrote it when she was suffering from severe depression. Her fellow-playwright and friend David Greig said that the play is about a "psychotic mind." According to Greig, the title comes from the time – 4:48 a.m. – when Kane often woke up during her depression.
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