These Premises are Alarmed - BLASTED

On Sale 07 November 2011

By Sarah Kane.

It’s a rare event when theatre makes the headlines but Blasted, Sarah Kane’s first play, did just that. Hugely controversial when it premiered at London’s Royal Court Theatre in 1995, it was hailed as a landmark of modern theatre, an astonishingly visceral play of harrowing power that achieved notoriety very quickly by being lambasted in the Daily Mail as “a disgusting feast of filth”.

It starts in a Leeds hotel room, to which sickly, gin-soaked local news journalist Ian takes his young lover, the naïve, epileptic Cate for the night. He’s racist, homophobic, and armed. They circle each other in a battle of wills when suddenly an armed soldier enters the room and ignites an explosive set of events that lead to scenes of rape, torture and cannibalism. Kane takes audiences through a nightmarish journey that serves as a vicious reminder that violence outside will always find a way in.

Blasted is not for the faint-hearted but it is for the reflective mind.

Director: Netta Yashchin
Lighting Designer: Mark Pennington
Designer: Wendy Todd
Cast: Patrick Graham, Anni Lindner, Mark Saturno
Composer: Stuart Day