About the work
Sarah Kane's „Blasted" was premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1995 and provoked one of the greatest theatrical scandals of postwar Britain. Today the play is regarded as a founding work of „in-yer-face" theatre and one of the most important English dramas of the late twentieth century. It interlinks private violence with the violence of war.
Plot
In an expensive hotel room in Leeds, the cynical, terminally ill and racist tabloid journalist Ian meets the young, vulnerable Cate, who is dependent on him. In the first half their tormenting relationship, marked by humiliation and assault, unfolds in realistic form. Then war abruptly breaks into the room: a soldier enters, a bomb destroys the hotel, and the private scene tips over into the imagery of a civil war. Rape, mutilation and extreme cruelty follow; the soldier recounts atrocities he has witnessed. At the end, alone in the rubble, the dying Ian lives through a series of elemental ordeals, while Cate brings him a last piece of bread. From the interweaving of bedroom and battlefield emerges a radical image of human violence.
Cultural significance
„Blasted" was fiercely attacked by the press at its premiere but is now regarded as a key work of modern theatre and the spark of the „in-yer-face" theatre of the 1990s. Sarah Kane's uncompromising formal language influenced an entire generation of playwrights. Her plays now belong to the international repertoire and are performed and studied worldwide.