Thanks for watching! If you've enjoyed this video then you can catch the rest of the series here: th-cam.com/play/PLIVcDWpMT7KeQzvbxxPTEJT5KY8kxtVfI.html
Writing on Kane's Blasted for an exam at university and I've got to say this video has been far more insightful than any of my lecturers take on it! Thank you for the great summary and analysis, super useful :-)
Hey Ellie, I'm glad you found it useful/interesting. Sarah Kane's (sadly short) collection of work is really fascinating. None of her plays are perfect (as are no one's) but her total disregard for form makes for some really revolutionary work. Best of luck with the exam!!
@@Tom_Nicholas Not sure if you're still doing this but since there is no formal way of studying stage plays for playwrights, do they simply go for trial and error? I've tried writing plays and it looks as it form is anti-theatre - that you're not supposed to care about any 'official' structure of a story, so a play can be anything. That isn't helpful to me as someone who wants to understand how to write a play. Where do I start?
The last thing you said was spot on :) Personally, I love the play for its convoluted themes and muddiness! Sarah was so full of bold ideas and her plays are ones I find myself regularly revisiting. I swear I find a new meaning in them with each read.
This is great! I read Blasted for the first time in the wee hours of the morning a couple of days ago and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, nor make sense of it in the way it deserves. So thank you for shedding some light and for articulating your thoughts so well! I'm sure I will be reading Blasted over and over again.
Hey I was just learning about her in my world theatre history class (it’s my senior year in my bachelor degree in theatre arts) sarah Kane was a revolutionary playwright. Such an inspiring and critical voice cut far too soon… I relate a lot to her and I think her writing will inform my own whether I like it or not
Hey Juliette, thanks for the comment! Would be interested for you to elaborate on what you mean by a 'postmodern state of mind'. I'd certainly suggest the play's use of deconstruction engages in some postmodern discursive tactics.
well I'm not a specialist at all, I'm just a French student who's extremely interested by literature/theatre and especially by Kane's work. What I meant was that the postmoderns absolutely do not take the author's life into account when analysing their work (this is a really simple analysis, I know, but I really do not agree with this). I think that an author is a person who grow up in a certain world, in a certain time, and to my mind it is totally included in their work. i have this example of a French author, Flaubert. When he Wrote Madame Bovary, he wanted to "write upon nothing" and claimed that he was NOT in his novel in anyway. He compared the writer to God; always there, but never seen. But I think that beyond this will of not being a part of the novel, the simple fact that he decided not to be in his work, makes him actually really present in it. I don't know if what I say has even a sense and I'm sorry about that ! To conclude, I would say that Kane's work is way too abstract to actually analyse it without considering her biography. Of course, it is my point of view, and it is really modest !
I have nothing insightful to add to this video, except that when I read 'Blasted' several years ago, I learned that it was possible to physically recoil from a book in horror. Nearly chucked the thing across the train carriage. 'Raw' is quite the understatement.
Good work mate. About geographical spaces kane also inspired from Aristotle's unities: place , action and time . About "the luxury hotel somewhere in the world" you can also check Michel Foucault's utopias heterotopia theory
Hey Tom. Congratulations on your analysis and theatre thinking, I'm very inspired by it. Have you posted the Dan Rebellato 's article? I couldn't find it here. Thank you, and long live to your channel.
How insightful! I have to say I've always been quite intimidated by her work but this geniuinely made excited about the play, I have to give it another go. Thank you!
Glad you found it interesting! Yeah, I'm fairly on the fence about Kane's work. I don't think of it as groundbreaking in the way that some do. It's certainly different but I don't think it's in anyway perfect. I'd argue there's a certain immaturity to it but that may be part of the charm.
Yes! The way people talk about it makes me think I am failing to see this brilliant masterpiece in it. But I guess it's just because you often encounter this myth of her rather than real analysis of her work. It's always great to go back to the plays themselves!
Absolutely. I think that happens with a lot of writers but the sensitive context of Kane's short life does also make that mythical aura a little bit bigger and makes objective analysis of the work a little harder.
I was thinking of focusing my dissertation on Sarah Kane's works and I have found your video so interesting that I wanted to ask you if you have any suggestions for my research! :) Any advice is welcomed and really appreciated!
Hey Tom really enjoied your video. Very insightful. You don't know by any chance if there are any documentaries about Kanes plays or even a video of one of the performances of the plays? Would love to see one. Thanks and have a great day :)
Hey Leojulian! Thank you for your kind words! I believe there's a couple of good radio documentaries on Sarah Kane. Unfortunately, I'd imagine a recording of the play might be tricky to get hold of. If you get in touch with the National Theatre of Great Britain, they'll sometimes let you watch archive footage of their productions for educational purposes. Might be worth a shot?
Yeah, I've never done it myself so I don't know exactly who to get in touch with but a little Googling should help. No, I haven't which is a huge shame. I'd particularly love to see Blasted!
Tom Nicholas i'd love to see 4:48 psychosis - just to see how it's realized, because there were so many unclear parts - anyway thank you for your video :)
Yeah, there's so many bits which seem unstageable. I'm not sure whether I find that really exciting or incredibly indulgent though. Genuinely on the fence about that one...
Rape does not happen "over there" (in Bosnia), nor "over here", in a wealthy person's hotel room, but "in the mind" of a sadistic man. It is possible, but difficult, for women to experience this sadism because it is unlike her, but she can do it. A reversal occurs in your mind, if you are a woman, the first time you experience sadism, or the desire to do unto him as he has done unto you.
I understand where you're coming from but I think there's the potential that the notion that rape (indeed any sexual assault) exists within the thought process of the perpetrator does somehow lessen the violence of the actual physical act which I'd read as what Kane is getting at within this play. While there may be merit in understanding the warped logic of the attacker (while obviously never sympathising), it's the use of sexual assault as a weapon in order to display power that I'd read as being the discussion within the play.
I had heard about "Blasted" but have not seen it. I have seen work where a playwright took themes of violence and retribution. The title escapes me at the moment but I remember the performance. The idea is a woman who was attacked is confronted with the knowledge that the man convicted of the crime had been exonerated. He wants to meet with her, her son and her lesbian partner. It turns out that the man her testimony convicted did not attack her but was a rapist in action and thought. He had simply not been the man who attacked her that night. Prison did little to change him. He winds up taking revenge not on her but on her son. It was a powerful evening of theatre. It was plotted like an episode of "Law and Order" because that's how the play finally came together. I did get to talk to the cast members after the performance. The man who was convicted insists he has changed and has become a christian. I was skeptical because he did not say, "I did not attack you, but only because I wasn't near you. I am a rapist, I thought like a rapist. I'm nearly too ashamed to talk to you because I am becoming a human being again through God's grace." I could write a smoother play but not one more powerful
Sounds interesting. The debate of whether someone who's definitely committed a horrific act but been convicted on false evidence should be locked away or let free sounds contentious and really gripping. Would love to know what the play was called if you can remember! Blasted's particularly interesting in the way that it doesn't engage with these themes in such a traditional narrative way, it totally picks on political narratives from across the world and montages them together brilliantly (and devastatingly!).
This does not at all explain the piece to me. Nor does it encourage me to go and see it next week in Strasbourg... In fact, your video seems more about T Nicholas than about Sarah Kane.
Thanks for watching! If you've enjoyed this video then you can catch the rest of the series here: th-cam.com/play/PLIVcDWpMT7KeQzvbxxPTEJT5KY8kxtVfI.html
You said Blasted is not a perfect play. What in your mind is a perfect play?
Writing on Kane's Blasted for an exam at university and I've got to say this video has been far more insightful than any of my lecturers take on it! Thank you for the great summary and analysis, super useful :-)
Hey Ellie, I'm glad you found it useful/interesting. Sarah Kane's (sadly short) collection of work is really fascinating. None of her plays are perfect (as are no one's) but her total disregard for form makes for some really revolutionary work. Best of luck with the exam!!
@@Tom_Nicholas Not sure if you're still doing this but since there is no formal way of studying stage plays for playwrights, do they simply go for trial and error? I've tried writing plays and it looks as it form is anti-theatre - that you're not supposed to care about any 'official' structure of a story, so a play can be anything. That isn't helpful to me as someone who wants to understand how to write a play. Where do I start?
The last thing you said was spot on :) Personally, I love the play for its convoluted themes and muddiness! Sarah was so full of bold ideas and her plays are ones I find myself regularly revisiting. I swear I find a new meaning in them with each read.
This is great! I read Blasted for the first time in the wee hours of the morning a couple of days ago and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, nor make sense of it in the way it deserves. So thank you for shedding some light and for articulating your thoughts so well! I'm sure I will be reading Blasted over and over again.
Writing an essay on Blasted right now and this has been a huge help. If only my tutors could articulate these ideas in a similar way. Thank you!
Ah, I'm really happy to have helped. And best of luck with the essay!
This was really helpful. I had to read Blasted for a playwriting fellowship and it was daunting.
Hey I was just learning about her in my world theatre history class (it’s my senior year in my bachelor degree in theatre arts) sarah Kane was a revolutionary playwright. Such an inspiring and critical voice cut far too soon… I relate a lot to her and I think her writing will inform my own whether I like it or not
This was so helpful!!! I just read Blasted for my uni course and I was absolutely baffled but this made me see it differently. Thank you!
Finally someone who agrees with the fact that Kane's work cannot be read in a postmodern state of mind. This video is very insightful, thanks a lot.
Hey Juliette, thanks for the comment! Would be interested for you to elaborate on what you mean by a 'postmodern state of mind'. I'd certainly suggest the play's use of deconstruction engages in some postmodern discursive tactics.
well I'm not a specialist at all, I'm just a French student who's extremely interested by literature/theatre and especially by Kane's work. What I meant was that the postmoderns absolutely do not take the author's life into account when analysing their work (this is a really simple analysis, I know, but I really do not agree with this). I think that an author is a person who grow up in a certain world, in a certain time, and to my mind it is totally included in their work. i have this example of a French author, Flaubert. When he Wrote Madame Bovary, he wanted to "write upon nothing" and claimed that he was NOT in his novel in anyway. He compared the writer to God; always there, but never seen. But I think that beyond this will of not being a part of the novel, the simple fact that he decided not to be in his work, makes him actually really present in it. I don't know if what I say has even a sense and I'm sorry about that !
To conclude, I would say that Kane's work is way too abstract to actually analyse it without considering her biography.
Of course, it is my point of view, and it is really modest !
I would love to hear your opinions on Cleansed!
I have nothing insightful to add to this video, except that when I read 'Blasted' several years ago, I learned that it was possible to physically recoil from a book in horror. Nearly chucked the thing across the train carriage. 'Raw' is quite the understatement.
Good work mate. About geographical spaces kane also inspired from Aristotle's unities: place , action and time . About "the luxury hotel somewhere in the world" you can also check Michel Foucault's utopias heterotopia theory
I just started with Kane. The video helped👍
Hey Tom. Congratulations on your analysis and theatre thinking, I'm very inspired by it. Have you posted the Dan Rebellato
's article? I couldn't find it here. Thank you, and long live to your channel.
How insightful! I have to say I've always been quite intimidated by her work but this geniuinely made excited about the play, I have to give it another go. Thank you!
Glad you found it interesting! Yeah, I'm fairly on the fence about Kane's work. I don't think of it as groundbreaking in the way that some do. It's certainly different but I don't think it's in anyway perfect. I'd argue there's a certain immaturity to it but that may be part of the charm.
Yes! The way people talk about it makes me think I am failing to see this brilliant masterpiece in it. But I guess it's just because you often encounter this myth of her rather than real analysis of her work. It's always great to go back to the plays themselves!
Absolutely. I think that happens with a lot of writers but the sensitive context of Kane's short life does also make that mythical aura a little bit bigger and makes objective analysis of the work a little harder.
I was thinking of focusing my dissertation on Sarah Kane's works and I have found your video so interesting that I wanted to ask you if you have any suggestions for my research! :) Any advice is welcomed and really appreciated!
Great... would love to see something on Pinter and Beckett
This is a start: th-cam.com/video/MdUHdAY4Obg/w-d-xo.html
and more Pinter stuff at You Tube channel Mataharifilms
8:06 - sorry to be THAT person but that's a Malm bed from Ikea (I have one)...
wow great video
Hey Tom really enjoied your video. Very insightful. You don't know by any chance if there are any documentaries about Kanes plays or even a video of one of the performances of the plays? Would love to see one. Thanks and have a great day :)
Hey Leojulian! Thank you for your kind words! I believe there's a couple of good radio documentaries on Sarah Kane. Unfortunately, I'd imagine a recording of the play might be tricky to get hold of. If you get in touch with the National Theatre of Great Britain, they'll sometimes let you watch archive footage of their productions for educational purposes. Might be worth a shot?
Tom Nicholas thank you man thats a great idea. I will try that. Have you seen one of Kanes works live? :)
Yeah, I've never done it myself so I don't know exactly who to get in touch with but a little Googling should help. No, I haven't which is a huge shame. I'd particularly love to see Blasted!
Tom Nicholas i'd love to see 4:48 psychosis - just to see how it's realized, because there were so many unclear parts - anyway thank you for your video :)
Yeah, there's so many bits which seem unstageable. I'm not sure whether I find that really exciting or incredibly indulgent though. Genuinely on the fence about that one...
Thanks. Last night I saw the Israeli premiere of Blasted. (in 2004 there was a reading of it in Tel Aviv). It was: wow.
Ah cool. Hope you enjoyed it!
Rape does not happen "over there" (in Bosnia), nor "over here", in a wealthy person's hotel room, but "in the mind" of a sadistic man. It is possible, but difficult, for women to experience this sadism because it is unlike her, but she can do it. A reversal occurs in your mind, if you are a woman, the first time you experience sadism, or the desire to do unto him as he has done unto you.
I understand where you're coming from but I think there's the potential that the notion that rape (indeed any sexual assault) exists within the thought process of the perpetrator does somehow lessen the violence of the actual physical act which I'd read as what Kane is getting at within this play. While there may be merit in understanding the warped logic of the attacker (while obviously never sympathising), it's the use of sexual assault as a weapon in order to display power that I'd read as being the discussion within the play.
Very insightful. Tks very much!
No worries Elina, glad you found it interesting!
I had heard about "Blasted" but have not seen it. I have seen work where a playwright took themes of violence and retribution. The title escapes me at the moment but I remember the performance. The idea is a woman who was attacked is confronted with the knowledge that the man convicted of the crime had been exonerated. He wants to meet with her, her son and her lesbian partner. It turns out that the man her testimony convicted did not attack her but was a rapist in action and thought. He had simply not been the man who attacked her that night. Prison did little to change him. He winds up taking revenge not on her but on her son. It was a powerful evening of theatre. It was plotted like an episode of "Law and Order" because that's how the play finally came together. I did get to talk to the cast members after the performance. The man who was convicted insists he has changed and has become a christian. I was skeptical because he did not say, "I did not attack you, but only because I wasn't near you. I am a rapist, I thought like a rapist. I'm nearly too ashamed to talk to you because I am becoming a human being again through God's grace." I could write a smoother play but not one more powerful
Sounds interesting. The debate of whether someone who's definitely committed a horrific act but been convicted on false evidence should be locked away or let free sounds contentious and really gripping. Would love to know what the play was called if you can remember!
Blasted's particularly interesting in the way that it doesn't engage with these themes in such a traditional narrative way, it totally picks on political narratives from across the world and montages them together brilliantly (and devastatingly!).
I'll check through my playbills and see if I can get the title there. Thank you, by the way for your response.
+Steven Bosch Cheers Steven and no worries, part of the fun of doing this is getting to chat to people about cool plays!
This does not at all explain the piece to me. Nor does it encourage me to go and see it next week in Strasbourg...
In fact, your video seems more about T Nicholas than about Sarah Kane.