''Remember the Light, Believe in the Light'': il teatro di Sarah Kane.

Il lavoro è una panoramica trasversale delle cinque opere teatrali di Sarah Kane, autrice essenziale nel teatro contemporaneo europeo. Il taglio dell'analisi delle opere che mi sono proposta tende ad evidenziare i tratti comuni delle coppie Blasted/Phaedra's Love e Cleansed/Crave allineandoli verso la sintesi della coscienza in 4.48 Psychosis, e ad evidenziare l'andamento "elementale" della produzione di Kane.
Basted è l'opera dell'acqua. Phaedra's è quella del fuoco. Cleansed è l'opera della terra e Crave quella dell'aria.
4.48 Psychosis è l'etere.

The work of Sarah Kane is placed in the second half of the nineties and in political words it means that’s placed suddenly after the Thatcherite period, which was a really bad period for English drama.
And it was due to the strong repressive policy of Thatcher.

Framed up into this social situation, Kane’s plays show an originality of their own and a strong impact on the audience. The first of them –Blasted performed at Royal Court Theatre in London in January 1995, blowed up literally on the stage and between the lines written by the critics the day after the second press night.
Kane has always had troubles with journalists.
Her father was a tabloid journalist.
Ian, the main masculine character of Blasted is a middle aged horrible journalist, as the most of English ones…of course.
Thus houmorless critics would have been harm because of this parallelism.
She has always thought the English reviews of her work would have been nothing but lists of stage particulars. Lists of contents. Nobody among the critics tried to go straight at the heart of her work: the subversion of theatrical rules, the strong themes –passions and fears of mankind, the powerful vision of love, hope and pain, of solitude and madness.
They seemed only see chops and rapes and brutalities and debauchery. And they didn’t seem to accept her as a playwright.
As a professional playwright.

Then, something happened.
After her death, obviously.
And she is now one of the most famous contemporary (dead) playwright. Today the whole world can see her talent.
But it is just the paradox of being, the paradox of living for too many artists: they worship you when you’re burnt out.