Writer: Sarah Kane
Director: Chris Lawson
There’s no denying that this is play written by a troubled writer. Kane’s short and anxiety-filled life, before she committed suicide aged just 28, is heavily and painfully stamped on Crave, a play she wrote when she had “lost faith in love”, and pretty much everything else. As such it’s a relentlessly dismal intertextual rant which touches on pretty much all aspects of human suffering and abuse.
Four actors pace a dramatically lit stage, spitting out lines that refuse to create a clear narrative, words full of vitriol – for others, for the world, and for us, the audience. It’s an intense and angry short piece of theatre, well suited to the intimacy of 53Twos’s small space.
Chris Lawson’s production does nothing to soften the blow. This is forty minutes of difficult watch, up close, violent and painful. Dylan Tate’s lighting design adds to the rawness – cold white searchlights sweep over the audience, sudden blackouts sharpen the aural senses, but while this all works brilliantly to create an atmosphere, it’s just too relentless and one-note. The lack of narrative is just confusing. It’s hard to know if there are too many ideas being thrown out here or not enough, nothing is clear, nothing is resolved.
The tempo of the piece is, to some extent, determined by the writing, with thoughts and ideas criss-crossing one another. Stories are woven through, but never held on to by one performer. The ferocious pace makes it easy to lose the thread, and dispenses with any variation, all light (the dazzling kind you need to squint into), no shade.
There are strong performances amongst the cast, but also some disparity in Direction and delivery. Elizabeth Meadows’s jittery physicality seems at odds with the rest of the cast’s stillness. Jake Feretti delivers some of the most uncomfortable lines directly at the audience with a chilling, unwavering confidence, while many of Etta Fusi’s get lost amongst the chatter. It’s surely a tough piece to perform, though, and they are all sharply focused.
Crave is an experiment of a play, something wild and slightly out of control. It should be a dangerous and exciting experience, but this production is just frustratingly bleak.
Runs until 4 June 2023
The Reviews Hub Score
Bleak
