Articles about Sarah Kane's work.  Two are written by Sarah Kane.
Updates are welcome.

An Ethics of Catastrophe: The Theatre of Sarah Kane

by Ken Urban of Rutgers University. Published in PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, Issue 69, September 2001.  10 pages focussing on all of Kane's plays and highlighting the 2001 Royal Court season.

Click on the image for more details.

Review of Axis Theatre Company's Production of Crave

by Ken Urban of Rutgers University Published in Theatre Journal, Volume 53, Number 3, October 2001.  3 pages of a response to Axis's production of Kane's play.

Artaud´s Legacy- Sarah Kane: a Nineties take on Cruelty

A short (4 page large format) pamphlet as part of the Artaud´s Legacy series of the Theatre Museum, London.

"The loss of love that she describes [in Cleansed] brings to mind the loss of faith experienced by the Incas in The Royal Hunt of the Sun [by Peter Shaffer, another author in the Artaud series].  However for a nineties audience loss of faith is perhaps less culturally relevant than loss of love.  Interesting parallels can be drawn with Artaud´s own ideas about the action of human beings when placed in extreme situations".

The Final Act by Tessa Williams

A very good short (4 page) overview of her work and life, with good photos. "By the age of seven, she had written her first short story- about someone whose father is shot.  In her later years at school... she played truant to take a part in a Soho Polytechnic production of a Chekhov play". Marie Claire magazine, February 2001.

Sarah Kane writing in The Guardian

Two short (half page) articles by Sarah Kane at the Edinburgh Festival.

"The only thing I remember is..." in The Guardian 13 Aug 1998.  Written just before Crave  has its premiere- "it would be far too tempting to pre-empt the reviews and hit back first.  But I won't.  After all it's what I most despise critics for- writing the review before they have seen the play".  Kane also mentions Jeremy Weller's play Mad "the only piece of theatre to have changed my life".  And her humour comes out "arriving in Edinburgh... in my flat there's a large double bed (waste of space- golden rule of theatre, the writer never gets laid)".

"Drama with balls" in The Guardian 20 Aug 1998.  Rather than go to the festival she goes to a football match "there are some wonderful performances in Edinburgh... but there is only one David Beckham".  But of course she does cover theatre as well "unusually for me I'm encouraging my friends to see my play Crave before reading it, because I think of it more as text for performance than as a play".

Rat with hand exits stage left, The Independent

An interesting half page review of Cleansed by James Christopher on 4 May 1998.

"...there is a dreamlike quality to Cleansed which is absent in Blasted and a clearer indication that there is a deeper language at work".

"the play takes less than half an hour to read yet the latest running time has been clocked at 90 minutes. ´Words are literally only a third of the play´ says [director] Macdonald, ´the bulk of the meaning is carried through the imagery.  That's incredibly rare for a British playwright´".

A very angry young woman. The Independent

A good half page interview of Kane by Clare Bayley 23 Jan 1995.

"What makes Blasted so vivid and so dangerous is its ability to link domestic, personal, emotional- even verbal- violence with war and the atrocities that take place during it".

Kane says "acts of violence simply happen in life, they don't have a dramatic build-up and they are horrible.  That is how it is in the play".

Cash Fury at ´Vilest Ever´ Play. Daily Mirror

A short 300 word pseudo news item on 20 Jan 1995.

"A play branded the most disgusting ever shown in Britain is costing more than £22,000 in taxpayers´ and charity money... Ms Kane, 23- daughter of Mirror reporter Peter Kane- said she was "proud" of the production".

Blasted: a deeply moral and compassionate piece of theatre
or simply a disgusting feast of filth?
Michael Billington's review of Blasted. The Guardian

A review by Michael Billington on 20 Jan 1995.

"I was simply left wondering how such naive tosh managed to scrape past the Royal Court's normally judicious play-selection committee... the reason that the play falls apart is that there is no sense of external reality- who exactly is meant to be fighting whom out on the streets?... so full of horrors that we are reduced to bombed-out indifference... this farrago".

This disgusting feast of filth
Jack Tinker's review of Blasted. Daily Mail

Jack Tinker's infamous review of Blasted on 19 Jan 1995.

"...For utterly disgusted I was by a play which appears to know no bounds of decency yet has no message to convey by way of excuse... utterly without artistic merit...".

Various in Polish

Crave (Laknac). Translated by Iwona Libucha. "Dialog" Jan 2000, Issue 1, Vol. 518.

Fedra`s Love (Milosc Fedry). Translated by Malgorzata Semil. "Dialog" Sep 1999, Issue 9, Vol. 514.

Zaleski, Marek. "Co sie stalo Sarah Kane?" "Dialog" Apr 2002, Issue 4, Vol. 545. Verification of critical reception of Kane`s works.

Gruszczynski, Piotr. "Golas." "Dialog" Apr 2002, Issue 4, Vol. 545. A polemic with the article by Jacek Kopcinski - "Rzeczpospolita. Plus-Minus." Mar 9-10 2002 - on the Polish adaptation of Cleansed by Krzysztof Warlikowski.

Golinska, Justyna. "Wór brutali." "Dialog" Sep 1999, Issue 9, Vol. 514. An attempt at classification of playwrights generally perceived as exponents of the 'new brutalist movement'.

Duniec, Krystyna, Joanna Krakowska-Narozniak. "Beznadzieja." "Dialog" Dec 2001, Issue 12, Vol. 541.

Sierz, Alex. "Nie nazywajmy ich brutalistami." Translated by Michal Lachman. "Dialog" Nov 2002, Issue 11, Vol. 552.

Gevallen Engelen (Flemish/ Dutch)

An interesting article on Sarah Kane, published in Dutch in the theatre journal "Documenta" (Belgium), Issue 2, 2000, p. 112-21. Its title is: "Wie is er bang voor de gevallen engelen van Sarah Kane" (Who´s afraid of Sarah Kane's fallen angels) written by Laurens De Vos, who also reviewed Aleks Sierz's book "In-yer-face theatre" in the same journal (Issue 2, 2001).

Thanks to site visitor Bob Jaspers for the information.

Truth of Dare: Sarah Kane's Blasted (Flemish/ Dutch)

An article in Flemish/Dutch on Kane.  Theatre Magazine Vol 27 Issue 1 Dec 1998.

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Sarah Kane: Aristas Unidos (Portuguese)

David Harrower e Jon Fosse n'a Capital Sobre Sarah Kane depois da uma - teatro? quatro anos de trabalhos. Sobre: Sarah Kane- Ano 3, Abril, Número 4. Entrevista: Cingir-se à verdade Pele (Skin)- Outubro, Número 5. Click on either image for more details.

Nuori Voima (Finnish)

Helsinki-based Nuori Voima 4/2005, which looks at love in theatre, poetry, philosophy, and opera.  Finnish scriptwriter Aina Bergroth looks at the plays of Sarah Kane, where love involves power, manipulation, and submission. Bergroth places Kane in the tradition of the theatre of cruelty and of the absurd, represented by playwrights such as Artaud, Genet, Beckett, and Pinter. In Kane's plays, love is something characters most desire, but at the same time their destructive urges make it unattainable: "Have you ever thought, thought your heart would break? Wished you could cut open your chest, tear it out to stop the pain?" (Phaedra's Love). In the end, love kills.
 

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