Sarah Kane

Last night I watched YEP young directors version of Crave. Thinking about Crave and 448 Pyschosis all I can see is pain. These are plays that document the pain of existence, the burden of depression, and the weight of the idea of death as liberty.

Now firstly I'm going to say that Sarah Kane is a genius; her theatric and artistic understanding is formally progressive and visercally charged. There's no doubt about that right. Ok. So I'm not shitting on her. This isn't me shitting on Sarah Kane but I find that there's something really perverse about producing and charging people to see these plays (the one last night was free). The take away for me, as someone who has felt a lot of those feelings, that is that I'm not alone but for someone who has never felt that I worry that all they take away is pity.

For me Crave and 448 feel like a part of a wider argument; they are the symptom of the world and I feel like we need to examine the world around it and find an element of Matt Haig's hopefullnes in it. Watching these plays all I feel is the despair of a woman who killed herself and I can't get my head around why this is a useful thing to produce. I understand that her plays are acts of violent Dadaism, in-yer-face, and a response to the movement of her time but now I think we need to think about reacting to the present. The present, the world we live in, is dark, troubled, and crippled by a mental health crisis. We need plays that help us understand WHY we feel these things and not just HOW we feel these things. We need to understand ourselves within this world and how we function in them and how we can navigate through it. Is Sarah Kane a writer for now? Probably not; for me Bryony Kimmings Fake It Til You Make It or Matt Haigs Reasons To Stay Alive offer a kinder way in and out of the argument. I want to see the hope not perve in on the dispair of a young woman that took her life.

Still though kudos to the director and the actors. Made me see an feel what I thought was an impenitrable play.