Posted by: Iain Fisher
« on: August 05, 2013, 10:06:49 PM »and the press release:
"Tom Wilson, from Acomb, became friends with provocative playwright Sarah Kane after meeting her at the Edinburgh festival just months before her suicide in 1999 and was inspired to pen his own play in tribute to her. Blasted was branded “a disgusting feast of filth” by critics, before being revered after her death at age 28. And Tom expects the premier of semi-biographical Sugar Kane to be no less controversial than she was.
“I’ll be offended if at least one person doesn’t walk out,” says Tom, who has already written and produced three plays in York and London through his theatre company Naloxone Theatre Ensemble. “It really is a hot potato. But I figured at some point someone’s going to write something about her so I may as well go for it.”
The show tells a fantastical version of Kane’s story through a cast including four versions of Kane, a theatre critic and a drama student. “Some bits are really dark and hard to take. But it’s very, very funny. Sarah Kane created a sort of mythology around herself and this play is an illustration of that. There are some very adult themes which Sarah explored in her own work and this play revisits them, so it’s not for the faint-hearted. I wanted to create something that challenges people’s conceptions and I don’t think it’s what people might expect it to be. It’s going to be like going into a cafe for an egg sandwich and being given a box of lego.”
Tom and his predominantly Yorkshire-sourced cast and crew are hoping to bring Sugar Kane to York after the festival.
“The play is actually about 120 minutes long but I’ve had to cut it to 50 minutes for its slot at the Fringe. I felt like a butcher doing that and I’d love to bring that unseen stuff to York.”
"Tom Wilson, from Acomb, became friends with provocative playwright Sarah Kane after meeting her at the Edinburgh festival just months before her suicide in 1999 and was inspired to pen his own play in tribute to her. Blasted was branded “a disgusting feast of filth” by critics, before being revered after her death at age 28. And Tom expects the premier of semi-biographical Sugar Kane to be no less controversial than she was.
“I’ll be offended if at least one person doesn’t walk out,” says Tom, who has already written and produced three plays in York and London through his theatre company Naloxone Theatre Ensemble. “It really is a hot potato. But I figured at some point someone’s going to write something about her so I may as well go for it.”
The show tells a fantastical version of Kane’s story through a cast including four versions of Kane, a theatre critic and a drama student. “Some bits are really dark and hard to take. But it’s very, very funny. Sarah Kane created a sort of mythology around herself and this play is an illustration of that. There are some very adult themes which Sarah explored in her own work and this play revisits them, so it’s not for the faint-hearted. I wanted to create something that challenges people’s conceptions and I don’t think it’s what people might expect it to be. It’s going to be like going into a cafe for an egg sandwich and being given a box of lego.”
Tom and his predominantly Yorkshire-sourced cast and crew are hoping to bring Sugar Kane to York after the festival.
“The play is actually about 120 minutes long but I’ve had to cut it to 50 minutes for its slot at the Fringe. I felt like a butcher doing that and I’d love to bring that unseen stuff to York.”