Posted by: archive
« on: August 20, 2007, 10:26:08 PM »There are numerous Shakespearean allusions in Sarah Kane's plays...but if you're looking at "Blasted" then the most obvious is the whole business of being blinded, a la Gloucester losing his eyes in "King Lear" - that whole oxymoron of "you have to be blind to see properly", "you have to be deaf to be able to hear", "you have to be a beggar before you can understand being a king". If you look at Shakespeare's tragedies, especially the most emotionally unbearable ones like "Lear" and "Titus Andronicus", you find an element that's vastly similar to one in Sarah Kane's plays - the idea of redemptive violence, of character journeys in which CRUELTY and COMPASSION are two of the most important elements. It's why the endings of both "Lear" and "Blasted" are so beautiful and moving in spite of how devestatingly awful they are - the acts of kindness amidst tragedy and sorrow.
Archive 17-6-2002
Archive 17-6-2002