“This isn’t tat. This isn’t bric-a-brac” (Phaedra’s Love): the Poetics of Things in Sarah Kane’s Theatre
The evolution of Sarah Kane’s work has frequently been considered as Janus-faced. The first plays are often classed as examples of the “In-Yer-Face theatre”, a theatre which shocks through strong language and violent images while the last two plays, Crave and 4.48 Psychosis, tend towards abstraction...
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| Publicado en: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ebc, |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Lenguaje: | Anglais |
| Publicado: |
Études britanniques contemporaines
2019
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| Acceso en línea: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Sumario: | The evolution of Sarah Kane’s work has frequently been considered as Janus-faced. The first plays are often classed as examples of the “In-Yer-Face theatre”, a theatre which shocks through strong language and violent images while the last two plays, Crave and 4.48 Psychosis, tend towards abstraction and put an emphasis on voices in a theatre that has abandoned all conventions. The purpose of this article is to analyse the evolution of Sarah Kane’s work through the poetics of things. The plays can be read as a constant search for what the limits of our humanity are, limits that are questioned through the medium of objects as representatives of the outside world. The study of things reveals first a constant retreat from realism through the use of objects as foils: the iconicity between the things on stage and the world is strongly put into question and is finally dispensed with. Secondly, this retreat accompanies the blurring of frontiers on all levels: the limits between the subject and the world, between the human and the non-human are undermined, a phenomenon that is highlighted through the reification of characters and language. Eventually, the transgression of frontiers allows for the juxtaposition of contraries which is analysed through the central figure of the oxymoron. It is the epitome of Sarah Kane’s ongoing search for a form expressing both the necessity to communicate through language and the impossibility of doing so. |
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