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| Fayssal Bazzi in Sarah Kane's Blasted Photo: Pia Johnson |
The play, at this point, is about expectation and
transaction. Ian has brought Cate to this room for one thing and one thing
only. It’s about consent and the dangers of the male ego. And you can see why
the Malthouse programmed this now; in a time where we know violence against
women has hit plague proportions, this one-on-one moment captures that violence
in microcosm.
When Sarah Kane’s Blasted
was first performed in 1995 at the Royal Court in London, it caused a scandal.
This opening scene is confronting enough; Ian is racist, misogynist, homophobic
and his work as a journalist does nothing to redeem him. And nothing prepares
the audience for the show being torn apart at the end of scene two: a soldier
arrives and Ian and Cate find themselves in a war zone.
Kane’s work is rarely performed because it is brutal and
uncompromising. It’s easy to see how this play
and Kane’s brief career (she wrote Blasted
at 25 and died at 28) influenced so much that came later.
I had read the script and knew what to expect. This one room
in Leeds becomes a commentary on war and what society’s expectations of men can
lead to. And what it leads to is all based in fact, but that doesn’t make it
easier to watch. And no wonder the warnings from the theatre are so
comprehensive:
This show contains
EXTREME VIOLENCE, SEXUAL VIOLENCE, COARSE LANGUAGE, NUDITY,
SMOKE AND HAZE, LOUD AND DYNAMIC SOUND, HERBAL CIGARETTES
AND CONTENT SOME AUDIENCES MAY FIND CONFRONTING
Not surprisingly, this show and the content warnings
reminded me of another play that changed theatre, at least in Melbourne – The Hayloft
Project’s Thyestes. (Read my review of the original production from 2010.)
Director Anne-Louise Sarks made her name as part of The
Hayloft Project in Melbourne before moving to Sydney to work at Belvoir. I’m
not sure how much involvement she had in Thyestes,
but it feels right that one of the creative minds from Hayloft be the guiding
force behind this production of Blasted.
Given the subject matter, Anne-Louise’s steady-hand ensures
the play doesn’t feel at all exploitative. That’s an incredible achievement in
a story that encompasses rape, war crimes, torture and cannibalism.
Marg Horwell’s set design and Paul Jackson’s lighting work
together to underline the dread of the piece and keep the audience on edge, not
knowing what will await us after each blackout.
The actors – David Woods, Eloise Mignon, Fayssal Bazzi – are
put through the wringer with this one. They earned the applause that came at
the end, though they looked ready to collapse from exhaustion as they took
their bows.
In some strange ways, Blasted
is absolutely a product of its time, but the ripple effects this show has
created in the quarter-century since its debut are still being felt. Publicity
would have you believe that Kane’s first play changed the world, but if that
feels like a stretch, it definitely changed theatre in London and, by
extension, given Thyestes felt like
its progeny, in Melbourne, too.
Blasted is a searing
work, hard to watch and impossible to look away from. If the play itself is
about transactions and expectations between characters, this production is
about the transaction and expectation between the audience and Kane’s work.
Even if you know what to expect, you may not know what you’ll be left with. Somewhere
deep in the devastation, there is hope.
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| David Woods & Eloise Mignon in Sarah Kane's Blasted Photo: Pia Johnson |
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