Blasted

Blasted (1995) is the first of five plays Sarah Kane wrote before her premature death in 1999. It premiered in London in 1995, and was partly informed by the flood of horrific news coming from the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s. Ian, a middle-aged British journalist, and Cate, a young woman who lives with her mother, are meeting in a hotel room in Leeds, England for an intimate reunion. A war conflict is happening outside the hotel. The destruction is gradually happening in every level of their relationship, physical space and bodies. As doll parts the characters’ bodies are dismantled, and their most profound beautiful and horrific experiences of life and death are shared. In the playwright’s unblinking vision, despite the perverseness, degradation, and brutality, it is the humanity of these doomed creatures that registers most indelibly.