tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15793244.post371169739282800985..comments2023-05-10T05:55:31.372-07:00Comments on The Feminist Spectator: BlastedJill Dolanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09674110837402216325noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15793244.post-90189157895270322592009-03-01T09:01:00.000-08:002009-03-01T09:01:00.000-08:00I don't know Blasted but saw a good production of ...I don't know Blasted but saw a good production of Crave a few years ago. As I read your description it struck me as Pinter without any pretense of civility. Kane was obviously a tortured soul. I think she had none of the filters of language and culture that make life bearable. She put on stage what we really do to each other minus the social constructs that let us get away with it. The catharsis comes in revealing the truth in a way that will not allow the audience to build a polite fiction of a less brutal social contract as a solution. She wants our nerves to be as raw as hers and perhaps then we will change.Tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12263834908937049460noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15793244.post-17254109705868946932009-02-28T17:36:00.000-08:002009-02-28T17:36:00.000-08:00Jill - Old friend Tim Miller posted your blog on F...Jill - Old friend Tim Miller posted your blog on Facebook and I'm so glad I took a look. Everything you said about the oscars was true to my experience this year, although I suspect I liked Hugh Jackman a bit better than you did. I find him irresistably talented.<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the great writing and I'll check in from time to time. <BR/><BR/>Judith Ren-Layrenlayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04575372666036386266noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15793244.post-57764669724894635422009-01-14T19:42:00.000-08:002009-01-14T19:42:00.000-08:00Hi Jill! I am a postgraduate student of English, a...Hi Jill! I am a postgraduate student of English, and have recently begun researching on gender and theatre intersections in particular. While scanning the net, I came across your blogposts and found them extremely cogent and thought provoking…thank you Jill. I started off on Sarah Kane’s trail, and managed to find her plays at the library. While I have studied Churchill and seen a production of Top Girls in my department under Dr. Ananda Lal’s direction, as well as presented on her at a National Seminar, Kane was a revelation. Can I share my reflections on Blasted and ask a few questions?<BR/><BR/>It’s a very naked play as you’ve pointed out—very stark. There are no attempts at subtlety or propriety. It’s a world that’s blasted all such make believe, all such pretense at civility and society. At the same time, it is intensely human in the need for interaction at all levels: physical, and emotional. It’s like the Real that’s suddenly exposed, leaving us bewildered, shocked and insatiable for it at the same time! <BR/><BR/>I felt as though the hunger would be translated into the audience’s hunger for this feast—visual, aural and sexual in its power play and brutality. The consumption of the baby, of the food, of each others flesh is set out for our consumption, unabashedly, such is the power of Kane’s work. <BR/><BR/>I feel Kane brings up multiple issues through this play including that of possession and human relations, in their rawest, crudest formats. Professor, what must Kane have gone through to create this piece, I wonder. I myself am a poet and artist, and I know the distress and exhilaration of artistic production. <BR/><BR/>As you have pointed out, what is perhaps most disturbing is the normalcy with which violence exists in the blasted world and before the blast as well. There is a madness in the inescapability from that violence. <BR/><BR/>In many ways the play proceeds in describing changing equations of power , even as they are described in sexual and bodily acts.<BR/><BR/>Jill, what do you think of the incessant conversations on murder and the possibility of killing between Ian and Cate , and then between Ian and the Soldier? How can we understand the condition of such conference? And the transmutations of the same?<BR/><BR/>Reading a play text and watching a play are completely different experiences. I found your description of the performance very useful. The play performed in India would perhaps engender very different reactions. Performance elucidates the tension between bodies that touch, or do not. However, at the same time, interpretation of the body and its interaction with other bodies is so dynamic and different in every context that the play constantly revives and redefines itself, isn’t it? How would this play be received at different locations of the world? Do you think modifications would be necessary? It’s a difficult play to stage as you’ve said. However I feel that any modification/editing would largely take away from the play’s impact. What do you think Jill?<BR/><BR/>Pritha Banerjee<BR/>Kolkata<BR/>India.prithahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01946147857898469937noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15793244.post-1764294847343359402008-12-23T10:44:00.000-08:002008-12-23T10:44:00.000-08:00Tony, thanks for the info about the US premiere.Re...Tony, thanks for the info about the US premiere.<BR/><BR/>Re whether or not Kane's work is only for other theatre people . . . that's an interesting perspective. I do know that the response to BLASTED I've heard from other spectators has been more positive from theatre folks (teachers, scholars, practitioners) who KNOW Kane than those for whom this production was an introduction to her work.<BR/><BR/>That said, I don't think Kane is "elitist" in that regard. I just think perhaps there are allusions peppered throughout that might be legible to theatre folks and not to others. But to me, that doesn't detract from the power of the work at large.<BR/><BR/>Your thoughts?<BR/><BR/>Best, jdJill Dolanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09674110837402216325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15793244.post-77726938315777775422008-12-17T08:24:00.000-08:002008-12-17T08:24:00.000-08:00There wassome discussion about this in Chicago a ...There was<A HREF="http://storefrontrebellion.typepad.com/blog/2008/07/dang-blasted-premieres.html" REL="nofollow">some discussion</A> about this in Chicago a while back. I had been recently done here as well. It looks like A Theatre Under the Influence in Seattle did the US premiere. It's since been done several times before making it to NYC.<BR/><BR/>Here's another question for you. Kane's work as always struck me as the quintessential theatre created (almost) entirely for other theatre people. <BR/><BR/>Thoughts?Tony Adamshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02141675073979325374noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15793244.post-17404110360601067252008-12-17T06:38:00.000-08:002008-12-17T06:38:00.000-08:00Thanks for this, Tony. Some web research reveals ...Thanks for this, Tony. Some web research reveals that you're correct: The Soho Rep performance was the New York premiere of the play. Do you know, however, which was the American premiere? Does anyone know? I couldn't find that in a quick internet search.<BR/><BR/>Best, jdJill Dolanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09674110837402216325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15793244.post-87120017488532864712008-12-16T12:26:00.000-08:002008-12-16T12:26:00.000-08:00One small note. This is not the American premiere....One small note. This is not the American premiere.Tony Adamshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02141675073979325374noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15793244.post-17783378688836089532008-12-13T14:46:00.000-08:002008-12-13T14:46:00.000-08:00Hi Scott, good question. I do recall mentioning S...Hi Scott, good question. I do recall mentioning Sarah Kane and the conundrum she poses in UTOPIA IN PERFORMANCE, suggesting that even in her very dystopian world, shreds of hope present themselves as possibilities.<BR/><BR/>In BLASTED, I do find that despite the devastation wreaked by most of the actions in the play, on some fundamental level the play addresses people's desire to connect with one another. And although in this production, those connections are rarely made, the effort--misguided though it might be--is, I think, hopeful.<BR/><BR/>While I'd never condone rape, I do think that Kane is commenting on the pathos of resorting to sexual violence as a way of relating. Within that critique, I believe she does see hope for a different way of being together in the world.<BR/><BR/>Significant to me, too, in BLASTED, is her refusal to place blame on anyone (or anywhere). That is, the world here is utterly awry, wrong in every way, but the dystopia she forces us to view and consider is one very much constructed by forces more powerful than the three people we see struggling to make sense of it.<BR/><BR/>In the early 80s, Maria Irene Fornes wrote MUD, a similarly dystopian play in which the woman who's struggling to find her own agency is murdered in the end by one of the men she's been forced to nurture throughout the play. Some feminists at the time decried the work as anti-women, because this strong, determined woman was kept from fulfilling her promise.<BR/><BR/>But that artistic/political choice, too, made a feminist point. I see a parallel with Kane's plays. BLASTED doesn't provide a happy ending; to call it hopeful would be naive. But at the same time, Kane's darkest view of human relations still offers the seed of desire for something more, something else, something better.<BR/><BR/>And in that, I do find hope.<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the provocation, Scott, and for your continued engagement with my ideas.<BR/><BR/>My best, jdJill Dolanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09674110837402216325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15793244.post-8903555223652701552008-12-12T10:38:00.000-08:002008-12-12T10:38:00.000-08:00Jill -- After having read your "Utopia in Performa...Jill -- After having read your "Utopia in Performance," and agreeing with your evocation of a theatre of hope, I find it difficult to find a place in my aesthetic for such a brutal play that exploits every form of violence possible. I see no Aristotelian catharsis, which then throws me back to Plato's condemnation of drama for its negative influence on those who watch negative acts. In a world filled with brutality, what purpose does adding to it have?Scott Waltershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06465161646609405658noreply@blogger.com