synopsis

From Director’s Notes for Blasted

Sarah Kane wrote with great passion about the world she saw around her. In all of her plays, love and violence are deeply entwined and hope and despair are mirror images of each other. Blasted explores many aspects of love and violence, in particular the dehumanising and brutalising effects of war.

Kane believed that war is confused and illogical. Horrible acts of violence simply happen in life and the seeds of full-scale war can always be found in peacetime civilisation. Just like in war, suddenly, violently, without any warning, people’s lives are completely ripped to pieces. When Kane wrote the play the horrors of Bosnia were being splashed across television screens around the world. Almost a decade later, these atrocities still exist, although the landscape may have changed, and we have to ask ourselves why.

This is a work about fragility, survival and hope. A mixture of humour and horror, it raises many questions, but doesn’t necessarily provide any solid answers. Ultimately, Blasted is about a crisis of living. How do we continue to live when life becomes so painful and unbearable? In Kane’s words: “The only response is to live with as much humanity, humour and freedom as we can.”

Luke Rogers
2003