Sarah Kane’s Crave (1998) and 4:48 Psychosis (1999): the redemptive power of art
[EN]The present study examines the concept of the redemptive power of art and how it is expressed in Sarah Kane’s last two plays, Crave (1998) and 4:48 Psychosis (1999). From violence and shock being the dominant elements of Kane’s earlier plays such as Blasted (1995), Phaedra’s Love (1996) and Clea...
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| Tipo de recurso: | tesis de maestría |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2018 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad de Salamanca (USAL) |
| Repositorio: | GREDOS. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Salamanca |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:gredos.usal.es:10366/138298 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10366/138298 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Antonin Artaud Bare Stage Bertolt Brecht Samuel Beckett Metatheatre Intertextuality Sarah Kane Theatre of Cruelty Crave 4:48 Psychosis |
| Sumario: | [EN]The present study examines the concept of the redemptive power of art and how it is expressed in Sarah Kane’s last two plays, Crave (1998) and 4:48 Psychosis (1999). From violence and shock being the dominant elements of Kane’s earlier plays such as Blasted (1995), Phaedra’s Love (1996) and Cleansed (1997), her last two plays are characterized by a shift of the theatrical form. Time, place and characters are gradually fading away, baring a society on the verge of collapse, consisting of fragmented personalities who are a step away, if not already, breaking down. In an effort to decipher her last two plays which are extremely fragmented and elusive, this paper is an attempt to approach them through the prism of theatre of cruelty, bare stage and metatheatre, each method corresponding to Kane’s main sources of influence; Antonin Artaud, Samuel Beckett and Bertolt Brecht respectively. The outcome is startling. In a world seemingly deprived of any sense of hope, art seems to be springing through the chaos just like a tuft of grass through the concrete. The gloominess of alienation and depression that the use of bare stage creates both in Crave and 4:48 Psychosis respectively, is partially dissolved by perceiving, through the use of metatheatre, the protagonists as people who, even though they find themselves standing on the edge, still try to create art and seek solace in it, highlighting that the redemptive power of art triumphs over, and often through, cruelty. |
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