New on TN http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Phaedre's Love by Sarah Kane. Abstract Chaos with Instorage at the Store
Room, until November 21.
Sarah Kane is the most exciting British playwright to emerge in the past
decade. Her work was long overshadowed by the tabloid frenzy sparked by the
1995 production of her first play, Blasted , notoriously greeted as the
product of a "sick" mind by a succession of rabidly foaming reviewers. The
Daily Mail's Jack Tinker memorably labelled it a "disgusting feast of
filth".
In common with many English-language writers treated without honour in their
own countries (Samuel Beckett, Edward Bond, Howard Barker), European theatre
was quick to recognise Kane's significance and welcomed Blasted as one of
the most important plays of the 1990s. Critical opinion in Britain began to
turn in 1998 with the premiere of Crave , but her suicide the following year
made her the poete maudite of her generation. After her suicide, Kane's
plays - like Sylvia Plath's poetry, and to their equal detriment - were
mostly read as autobiographical expressions which foreshadowed her untimely
death. As much as the claim that she wrote to shock for shock's sake, this
romanticised notion obscured her uncompromising theatrical innovation.
In Australia, despite her steadily growing international reputation, Kane's
work is still the province of the "fringe". She has been staged by theatres
like Brisbane's La Boite and Sydney's New Theatre or the Stables, or by
small independent theatre companies in Melbourne. I mean no disrespect to
independent companies when I say that it's a shameful reflection on
Australian theatre that one of the most important contemporary playwrights
in the English language is unable to get a gig on a major stage.
Read more at http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
All the best
Alison
Alison Croggon
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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