Sarah Kane (February 3, 1971 – February 20, 1999) was an English playwright. February 3 is the 34th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Year 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1971 Gregorian calendar. ... Essex is a county in the East of England. ... Motto (French) God and my right Anthem No official anthem - the United Kingdom anthem God Save the Queen is commonly used England() – on the European continent() – in the United Kingdom() Capital (and largest city) London (de facto) Official languages English (de facto) Unified  -  by Athelstan 927 AD  Area  -  Total 130... February 20 is the 51st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar). ... Kings College Hospital, Ruskin Wing Kings College Hospital first opened in 1840 close to Lincolns Inn Fields and within two years was treating 1290 inpatients in 120 beds. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... For the album by the Kaiser Chiefs see Employment (album) Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. ... A playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or drama. ... Samuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish dramatist, novelist and poet. ... Edward Bond (born July 18, 1934) is an English playwright, theatre director, theorist and screenwriter. ... Karl Georg Büchner (October 17, 1813 – February 19, 1837) was a German dramatist and writer of prose. ... Harold Pinter, CH, CBE (born 10 October 1930) is an English playwright, screenwriter, poet, actor, director, author, and political activist, best known for his plays The Birthday Party (1957), The Caretaker (1959), The Homecoming (1964), and Betrayal (1978), and also for his screenplay adaptations of novels by others, such as... February 3 is the 34th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Year 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1971 Gregorian calendar. ... February 20 is the 51st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar). ... Motto (French) God and my right Anthem No official anthem - the United Kingdom anthem God Save the Queen is commonly used England() – on the European continent() – in the United Kingdom() Capital (and largest city) London (de facto) Official languages English (de facto) Unified  -  by Athelstan 927 AD  Area  -  Total 130... A playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or drama. ...

Life and Career

Though during her lifetime her work never played to large audiences in Britain and was at first dismissed by many newspaper critics,Sarah Kane is now widely regarded as a significant figure in drama of the 90s. Her impact is all the more remarkable, given that her entire published output consists of five plays and a screenplay for a short film, Skin. Her plays deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, cruelty, pain, torture — both psychological and physical — and death, and are characterised by a poetic intensity, pared-down language, a bold exploration of theatrical form and, in her earlier work, the use of extreme and violent stage action. Her inspirations were in expressionist theatre and other non-naturalistic theatrical forms, including Jacobean tragedy. Her work is thus at variance with the naturalistic tendencies of much 20th century English theatre. Skin is an 11-minute short film starring Ewen Bremner and Marcia Rose and directed by Vincent OConnell. ... Expressionist theatre is, basically, theatre with expressionistic goals in mind. ...

Born in Brentwood, Essex, and raised by evangelical parents, Kane was a committed Christian in adolescence, though she later rejected those beliefs. She studied drama at Bristol University, graduating in 1992, and went on to take an MA course in playwrighting at Birmingham University, where she studied under the playwright David Edgar ^[1]. Kane struggled with severe depression for many years and was twice voluntarily admitted to the Maudsley Hospital in London ^[2]. However, she wrote consistently, if slowly, throughout her adult life and was for a year the writer-in-residence for Paines Plough, a theatre company promoting new writing where she actively encouraged other writers ^[3]. Brentwood is the name of several places in the world: Cities Brentwood, California, United States of America Brentwood, Essex, England, United Kingdom Brentwood, Maryland, United States of America Brentwood, Missouri, United States of America Brentwood, New Hampshire, United States of America Brentwood, New York, United States of America Brentwood, Pennsylvania... The word evangelicalism usually refers to a broad collection of religious beliefs, practices, and traditions which are found among conservative Protestant Christians. ... The University of Bristol was founded in 1876 as the University College, Bristol. ... The University of Birmingham is the oldest of three universities in the English city of Birmingham. ... David Edgar (b. ... “Sad” redirects here. ... The Maudsley Hospital in Denmark Hill, Camberwell, South London is unique as a psychiatric hospital in that it was always intended to be a centre of treatment and research rather than confinement and asylum. Now part of the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust (SLaM) the hospital derives its origins...

Kane was to write ^[4] that she was attracted to the stage because 'theatre has no memory, which makes it the most existential of the arts...I keep coming back in the hope that someone in a darkened room somewhere will show me an image that burns itself into my mind.'

Apart from some early work which she would dismiss as 'juvenilia' ^[5], Kane's first play, was Blasted. Kane wrote the first two scenes of this while a student at Birmingham, where they were given a public performance. The agent Mel Kenyon was among the audience and subsequently represented Kane, suggesting she should show her work to the Royal Court Theatre in London. ^[6]. Blasted is a 1995 play by British author Sarah Kane and one of the prime examples of in-yer-face theatre. ... Mel Kenyon The legendary Mel Kenyon, given the title of King of the Midgets was born in Lacon, Illinois on April 15, 1933. ... The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre in Sloane Square, in the Chelsea area of London noted for its contributions to modern theatre. ...

The completed play, directed by James Macdonald ,opened at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in 1995. The action is set in a room of a luxurious hotel in Leeds where Ian, a racist and foul-mouthed middle-aged journalist, first tries to seduce and later rapes Cate, an innocent and simple-minded young woman. From its opening in a naturalistic -- though troubling -- world, the play takes on different, nightmarish dimensions when the Soldier, armed with a sniper's rifle, appears in the room, and the narrative ultimately breaks into a series of increasingly disturbing short scenes. This article is about the religious leader; for the ice hockey player see James Kilby Macdonald James MacDonald (b. ...

Its scenes of anal rape, cannibalism, and brutality, created one the biggest theatre scandals in London since the baby stoning scene in Edward Bond's play Saved; Kane admired Bond's work and he in turn publicly defended Kane's play and talent ^[7]. Other dramatists whom Kane particularly liked and who could be seen as influences include Samuel Beckett, Howard Barker ^[8] , and Georg Büchner, whose play Woyzeck she later directed (Gate Theatre, London 1997). Edward Bond (born July 18, 1934) is an English playwright, theatre director, theorist and screenwriter. ... Edward Bonds Saved was first produced at the Royal Court in November 1965. ... Samuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish dramatist, novelist and poet. ... Howard Barker (born 1946) is a British playwright. ... Karl Georg Büchner (October 17, 1813 – February 19, 1837) was a German dramatist and writer of prose. ... Klaus Kinski in Werner Herzogs Woyzeck Woyzeck is a stage play written by Georg Büchner. ...

Blasted was fiercely attacked in the British press with the Daily Mail's drama critic Jack Tinker (after whom she is thought to have named a character in her later play Cleansed) writing a review headlined 'this disgusting feast of filth' ^[9], a reaction shared, if in slightly more muted terms, by most other critics ^[10]. Blasted's merits were however recognised by fellow playwrights Martin Crimp ^[11],Harold Pinter (who became a friend) ^[12] and Caryl Churchill,^[13] who considered it 'rather a tender play'. It later became more generally accepted that the play should be seen not as an adolescent attempt to shock, but instead as drawing parallels between acts of domestic abuse and the war being fought in Bosnia, between emotional and physical violence, thus confronting audiences with moral challenges rather than amoral shock tactics. Martin Crimp (born February 14, 1956, Dartford, Kent, Great Britain) is a British playwright. ... Harold Pinter, CH, CBE (born 10 October 1930) is an English playwright, screenwriter, poet, actor, director, author, and political activist, best known for his plays The Birthday Party (1957), The Caretaker (1959), The Homecoming (1964), and Betrayal (1978), and also for his screenplay adaptations of novels by others, such as... Caryl Churchill (born September 3, 1938) is an English writer of stage plays known for her use of non-realistic techniques and feminist themes. ...

Kane was then commissioned by the Gate Theatre, London, to write a play inspired by a classic text. Phaedra's Love was loosely based on the classical dramatist Seneca's play Phaedra, but given a contemporary setting. In this reworking of the myth of Phaedra's doomed love for her stepson Hippolytus, it is Hippolytus, not Phaedra who takes the central role. Bored, depressed but highly sexually attractive, it is Hippolytus' emotional cruelty which pushes Phaedra to suicide. Kane reversed classical tradition by showing, rather than describing, violent action on stage. The play continued her exploration of love, desire, cruelty and death and contains her wittiest and most cynical dialogue. Kane described it as 'my comedy' ^[14]. Directed by Kane, it was first performed at the Gate Theatre in 1996. The Gate Theatre, in Dublin, was founded in 1928 by Hilton Edwards and Micheál MacLiammoir, initially using the Abbey Theatres Peacock studio theatre space to stage important works by European and American dramatists. ... Phaedras Love is Sarah Kanes modern recreation of Senecas Phaedra. ... Phaedra can refer to: The mythological figure Phaedra. ...

This was followed two years later by Cleansed presented by the Royal Court at the Duke of York's Theatre, London and again directed by James Macdonald, in what was at the time the most expensive production in the Royal Court's history. Set in what Kane in her stage directions described as a 'university' but which functions more as a torture chamber or concentration camp, overseen by the sadistic Tinker, it places a young woman and her brother, a disturbed boy, a gay couple and a peepshow dancer within this world of extreme cruelty in which declarations of love are viciously tested. Kane's most theatrically ambitious work, it pushes the limits of what can be realised in the theatre with stage directions including 'a sunflower pushes through the floor and grows above their heads' and 'the rat begins to eat Carl's hand.' Cleansed is the third play by Sarah Kane and an example of in-yer-face theatre. ... The Duke of Yorks Theatre in London, UK, opened on 10 September 1892 with Wedding Eve, was built for Frank Wyatt and his wife, Violet Melnotte. ... This article is about the religious leader; for the ice hockey player see James Kilby Macdonald James MacDonald (b. ...

A change in critical opinion occurred with her fourth play, Crave ^[15], which was directed by Vicky Featherstone and presented by Paines Plough at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in 1998. The play was performed under the pseudonym of Marie Kelvedon, partly because the notion amused Kane, but also so that the play could be viewed without the taint of its author's notorious reputation. 'Marie' was Kane's middle name and she was brought up in the town of Kelvedon Hatch in Essex. ^[16]. Crave is the fourth play by British playwright Sarah Kane. ... The Traverse Theatre building off Lothian Road in Edinburgh. ... Kelvedon Hatch is a village in south Essex, England. ...

Crave marks a break from the on-stage violence of Kane's previous works and a move to a freer, sometimes lyrical writing style, at times inspired by her reading of the Bible and of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land^[17]. It has four characters, each identified only by a letter of the alphabet, linked through various relationships. It dispenses with plot and unlike her earlier work, with its highly specific stage directions, gives no indication what actions, if any, the actors should perform on stage, nor does it give any setting for the play. As such, it may have been influenced by Martin Crimp's 1997 play Attempts on Her Life, which similarly dispenses with setting and overall narrative, Kane having written of her admiration for Crimp's formal innovations ^[18]. The work is highly intertextual. At the time, Kane regarded it as the 'most despairing' of her plays written when she had lost 'faith in love' ^[19]. The Waste Land (1922), sometimes mistakenly written as The Wasteland, is a highly influential 434-line modernist poem by T. S. Eliot. ... Martin Crimp (born February 14, 1956, Dartford, Kent, Great Britain) is a British playwright. ... Intertextuality is the shaping of texts meanings by other texts. ...

Kane's career was brought to a premature end in 1999, when, two days after taking an overdose of prescription drugs, she committed suicide by hanging herself in a bathroom at London's King's College Hospital ^[20].

Her last play, 4.48 Psychosis, was completed shortly before she died and was performed in 2000,a year after her death, at the Royal Court, directed by James Macdonald. This, Kane's shortest and most fragmented theatrical work, dispenses not only with plot but with character and no indication is given as to how many actors were intended to voice the play (in Macdonald's production, two women and one man performed the work). Written at a time when Kane was suffering from severe depression, it has been described by her fellow-playwright and friend David Greig as having as its subject the 'psychotic mind' ^[21]. According to Greig, the title derives from the time -- 4.48 am -- when Kane, in her depressed state, frequently woke in the morning. 4. ... David Greig is a Scottish playwright and director. ...

Kane work has proved highly influential and widely performed in Europe and South America. In 2005, the theatre director Dominic Dromgoole wrote that she was 'without doubt the most performed new writer on the international circuit'. ^[22] At one point in Germany there were 17 simultaneous productions of her work. Dominic Dromgoole (born 1964, England) is an English theatre director and writer about the theatre. ...

Plays

• Blasted (1995)
• Phaedra's Love (1996)
• Cleansed (1998)
• Crave (1998)
• 4.48 Psychosis (1999)

Blasted is a 1995 play by British author Sarah Kane and one of the prime examples of in-yer-face theatre. ... Year 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full 1995 Gregorian calendar). ... Phaedras Love is Sarah Kanes modern recreation of Senecas Phaedra. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... Cleansed is the third play by Sarah Kane and an example of in-yer-face theatre. ... Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... Crave is the fourth play by British playwright Sarah Kane. ... Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... 4. ... Year 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar). ...

Screenplays

• Skin (1995)

Skin is an 11-minute short film starring Ewen Bremner and Marcia Rose and directed by Vincent OConnell. ... Year 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full 1995 Gregorian calendar). ...

Literature

• Sarah Kane: Complete Plays. London: Methuen 2001 ISBN 0-413-74260-1
• Graham Saunders: ‘Love Me or Kill Me’. Sarah Kane and the Theatre of Extremes. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002 ISBN 0-7190-5956-9

References

Shortcut: WP:-( Vandalism is indisputable bad-faith addition, deletion, or change to content, made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia. ... Shortcut: WP:-( Vandalism is indisputable bad-faith addition, deletion, or change to content, made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia. ...

External links

• Iain Fisher's Sarah Kane tribute site
• Obituary in British Theatre Guide
• The Blurb
• IMDB
• Guardian: Sarah Kane (10/2005)