Sarah Kane's Role in the In-Yer-Face Theatre

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, Ruhr-University of Bochum, course: Sarah Kane, language: English, abstract: 1. Introduction "Her plays were among the most controversial of the decade". So Aleks Sierz characterizes one of the "big three of in-yer-face theatre" Sarah Kane with her shocking plots and even more shocking word choice for their descriptions. She published five plays, Blasted, Phaedra's Love, Cleansed, Crave, and 4.48 Psychosis, one short film, Skin, and two newspaper articles for The Guardian. Her works deal with such topics as violence, also sexual violence, pain, torture, hetero- und homosexual love, incest and death. She provokes with her stories and crosses the boundaries of the normal, common reality. Which role did Sarah Kane play indeed in the establishing of the in-yer-face theatre? The following term paper will analyze this question. It will be shown, what in-yer-face theatre is with its history, rules and peculiarities. A structured schema will be built according to these characteristics in order to allow the further analyses of Kane's role in establishing of in-yer-face theatre concept. In frames of Sarah Kane's five plays will be examined, which characteristic features of the movement they pick up, which resemblances these plays bear to other works in line with the in-yer-face theatre concept and which innovative contributions they have brought.