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more: performances 2009

 

 

Blasted in New York, USA now extended

Sarah Kane Blasted- click for link
Marin Ireland and Reed Birney in Blasted photo by Simon Kane
the image is from herewww.playbill.com/news/article/122163.html

Soho Rep Studio, New York Blasted from 2 Oct to 21 Dec 2008.  The director is Sarah Benson and the actors are Reed Birney, Louis Cancelmi and Marin Ireland.   Thanks to Sarah and Shawn for the information.  Click on the image for more details.

 

Crave in Baltimore, USA

Single Carrot Theatre present Crave from 4- 21 Dec 2008.  More details soon.  Thanks to Sarah for the information.

 

Cleansed in Portugal

Sarah Kane Cleansed- click for link

The Polish Cleansed is coming to Portugal.    It is at the Teatro Nacional São João, Porto from 6 Dec 2008.   The play will be performed in Polish with Portuguese subtitles.  Click on the image for more details.

 

Crave in Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Sarah Kane Crave

Theater Ninjas present the Ohio premiere of Crave from 20 Feb- 8 Mar 2009.  Click on the image for more details.

 

4.48 Psychosis in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, USA

The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre in Pawtucket, Rhode Island present 4:48 Psychosis directed by Tony Estrella.  It is on from 14 Jan- 7 Feb 2010.

 

4.48 Psychosis in London

4.48 Psychosis- click for link

4.48 Psychosis is coming to London, UK.    It is at the Young Vic from 25 Jul to 1 Aug 2009.  The director is Christina Beneditti and the actor is Anamaria Marinca.  Click on the image for more details.

Lyn Gardner in The Guardian on 24 Jul 2009 (guardian.co.uk) writes "Sarah Kane's last play, written before she killed herself 10 years ago, has been described as a theatrical suicide note. That sells it short. It is so much more: a manifesto for living by one about to die. In Christian Benedetti's stark revival, performed solo by the Romanian actor Anamaria Marinca, it becomes an exploration of ways of seeing. Ourselves. Other people. A stage. A patient looking at a doctor, and a doctor staring back... From its opening moments, this is not an easy evening. It is relentless, but in a good – if not enjoyable – way. Marinca, dressed in jeans and singlet, stands rooted to the spot in an apparent void, with two doors behind her, but no choices. For the next 72 minutes, she barely moves her feet, but her darting gaze is merciless. She sees us, and our wounded hearts, as clearly as she sees herself. We are the doctors who prod and poke and ask inane questions... Marinca is a low-key but compelling presence who lets the words and her eyes do the talking. For the whole performance there is nowhere to hide. We are implicated by the act of watching. "

4.48 Psychosis- click for link

Anamaria Marinca in 4.48 Psychosis.
Photograph: Tristram Kenton.  Click on the image for the source.

 

Aleks Sierz interviews actress Anamaria Marinca in a north London café for The Telegraph (telegraph.co.uk).  “…I don’t look for these extreme projects… they just happen. There is some darkness in me, but no more than in any other person. And I sometimes want to confront it… Firstly, it’s about a time of night, 4.48am, a dark moment which paradoxically leads to clarity in the mind of its author… And it’s not just about a personal illness but it’s a metaphor about the sickness of humankind... The text always feels very dangerous - in a very good way… You have to be completely vulnerable, and that is a very difficult thing.”
 

 

Edinburgh Festival 2009: Two Craves!!

Sarah Kane Crave- click for source

The Royal Holloway Theatre Company present Crave at the Edinburgh Festival.  It is on from 5-31 Aug 2009 at the C Soco venue.

The actors are Lewis Alexander Collier (A), EJ Martin (M), Anna McKiernan (C) and Steve Wickenden (B).  The director is Tamsin Bell,  Asst Director Liam Fleming, Producer Ben Karakashian,  Asst Producer Sophie Hallwood, Stage Manager Julia Berndt, Deputy Stage Manager Hannah Debansi, Asst Stage Manager Lizzie Fisher, Lighting Designer Andrew Sinclair and Press Officer George Islay Calderwood.  Click on the image for more details.

 

Crave at Jury's Inn

ICU Dramsoc present Crave at The Space @ Jury's Inn (Venue 260).  It is on from 17-29 Aug 2009. 

In this interpretation of the play, we are taken into the lives of a broken, dysfunctional family. Characters A and M are the separated parents of C, with B being M’s somewhat rebounded toy-boy lover. M is for Mother, A is for Addict, C is for Child, B is for Boy.

"Seeking to be as true to Kane’s approach as possible, our production of Crave presents a new combination of four out of our eight actors every night, to prevent the actors from becoming too settled into their roles. By keeping them on their toes, the director hopes to find a rawness and
honesty to every performance that faithfully communicates Kane’s message and ideas. It is also meant to emphasise the very point of coming to the theatre – each show is unique and cannot be repeated."  For more details see www.thespaceuk.com/edinburgh/venue260-shows/89 . Thanks to Jess and James for the information.

 

Phaedra's Love in Minneapolis, USA

Sarah Kane Phaedra's Love - click for link

Red Letter Theater present Phaedra's Love at the Bryant-Lake Bowl Theater, Minneapoliss, USA from 27-30 Aug 2009.  The actors are Heather Stone (Phaedra), Nicholas Leeman (Hippolytus), Larissa Shea (Strophe),  Jonathan Peterson (doctor/ priest/ Theseus), Linda Saetre (nurse) and Steve Ramirez (policeman) The townspeople are Kayla Hambek, Peter Heeringa, Eva Nelson and Andrew Sass.

The director is David Hanzal, assistant director Emily Meranda, costume designer Megan Wannarka, wig designer David Pipho, dramaturg Max Mondi and percussion consultant Dylan Jack.  Click on the image for more details.

Matthew A. Everett reviews the play in the Daily Planet on 30 Aug 2009 (click here for the full review)

The review doesn't start promisingly "...the script is by Sarah Kane. This playwright had a history of mental illness, depression in particular, and ended up hanging herself... What kind of a play do you think a person with that going on in their brain is going to write?".  Presumably he lumps together Kane with Hemmingway, Yukio Mishima and
Athur Koestler as similar writers.

But there are interesting points later.  He calls the production "Pretty damn good. The failings, I think, were more the fault of the script than the acting or directing...".

"Nicholas Leeman has an uphill battle with the character of Hippolytus, since the playwright appears to be daring us to hate him (and the play) from the time the curtain opens. Hippolytus is slovenly, selfish, and uncaring of others’ feelings. He says and does awful things without a hint of remorse, often without even realizing their impact. Leeman’s character also got the lion’s share of the lines that had the audience gasping in disbelief, and the actor took full advantage of the ammunition he was given. The strange thing is that Leeman has the charisma that Hippolytus needs for us to buy that everyone’s so obsessed with him, but it’s almost as if he wasn’t allowed to use it. The performance is purposely tamped down, deadened, flattened out...

Here’s where it all kind of starts to come unglued - these characters are, at their most basic, just fundamentally annoying. They are people of means, of power, of leisure. It is only because they hold a lofty station in society that they have the luxury of becoming bored, oversexed, and obsessed... Kane took these characters and made them human, but she also made them assholes. Poor Strophe (Larissa Shea) has the dubious honor of being the voice of reason for both her mother and stepbrother and everything she says is perfectly correct. She sees these people from the outside, and points out their absurdity. But she also leaves us no one to root for. This is where I think the script fails the actors and director. I don’t get the feeling they didn’t dig deeply enough, I just don’t think there’s any deeper to dig in this text. There is nothing noble about animals in heat, and that’s essentially what we’ve got here. It’s all instinct, no filters. People do colossally stupid things, and pay for it. But there’s no catharsis. These people aren’t falling from a great height. They’re already down in the gutter. They just poke their heads up for a moment and have them squashed back down again. They just have better clothes...

...The play opens in silence, for several minutes, and nothing is explained to us. All the central characters and issues of the play, however, are made clear. Because there are no lines of dialogue, the audience is forced to watch closely, and make up their own minds who these people are and what’s going on. Because the physical language of the actors, and the visual language of the design are so clear and specific, we know what world we’re entering. It’s intense, and immediately draws the audience in.

Contrasting this silent opening, the end in this production is narrated by Phaedra (or rather, her spirit). But I had the nagging feeling that these were stage directions (very engaging stage directions, but stage directions nonetheless) being read to us, rather than actual lines. This wasn’t because of the performance. Stone gives us an anchor in the middle of the play’s final minutes of chaos by threading it all together with her voice. However, all the events of the end of the play, though chaotic, were clear without this narration. This again was partly due to acting, partly due to design. All the characters were clear from the way they were performed... Kane’s script, up until that sequence, never seemed to feel the need to explain itself or offer any kind of omniscient perspective, so I’m not sure I buy that she suddenly changed her writing tactics because she was worried it would be too hard for the audience to follow.

Kane seems to demand that her audience pay attention and keep up. She doesn’t disregard the audience, but she gives them credit for a lot more than most scripts would...".

 

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