SARAH KANE. THE CORROSIVE DRAMA OF AGGRESSION, TRAUMA AND DEPRESSION
SARAH KANE. THE CORROSIVE DRAMA OF AGGRESSION, TRAUMA AND DEPRESSION

Summary/Abstract: In Sarah Kane’s theatre, aggression, violence and traumas are invasive and all consuming. Their powerful imagery cannot and will not be contained by conventional dramatic structures. Starting with Blasted and finishing with 4.48 Psychosis, the involution of the plays from a social-realistic staging, character and plot to a poetical, fragmented, no character, incoherent monologue, show the corrosion of a violence-corrupted world and the disintegration of the traumatized psyche of the individual. This study focuses on Sarah Kane’s theatre as a modality to explore human aggression and its subjective perception as excruciating trauma and self-destroying depression. It also discusses the author’s choices concerning the dramatic structures she uses to express stories of aggression and depression. Based on the fundamentals of traumatic psychological theories, I suggest the author suggests that Kane is using her theatre to stage and create the conditions of a traumatic event, to “traumatize” the spectators and ultimately force them to reorganize their beliefs, change their values and way of thinking. In other words, she presents to the public a excruciating, yet amazing path to post-traumatic growth.

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