The Sarah Kane Season

Sheffield have just embarked on their Sarah Kane Season and they asked me to write something for the programme. At a distance of 20 years since the premiere of Blasted it seems to be possible to start looking more calmly at the subtleties and complexities of her work. I wanted to look at the legacies of Christian faith in her work. When I came to think about it, the plays seem flooded with its imagery; some of the founding myths from the Old Testament (Cain and Abel, notably) but images of damnation and salvation, sin and love, God the father and His forsaken son, and the always-out-of-reach hope for redemption. And, of course, of the three great Abrahamic religions, Christianity is the one that has an image of torture and murder at its very heart.

You can read the piece here.