Crave is a one-act play by British playwright Sarah Kane, in which she presents her very personal meditation on the meaning of love. It’s an angry, funny, kind, and cruel piece of work. The first performance was in 1998 at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh.
Crave was Kane’s fourth play, written a year before she committed suicide in 1999. Her previous works are known for their extremes of sex and cruelty and have attracted some scathing reviews. Her debut play Blasted was denounced as a “disgusting feast of filth”.
The performance I went to took place on a bus – on the Docklands campus of The University of East London (UEL) – and was produced and performed by second year performing arts students. Curtain up was at 6.30, so it was already dark by the time I walked around the back of the university’s West Building to board my venue for the night.
The atmosphere outside and inside the bus was gloomy. We were told to sit with our backs to the windows, so we could see better. What I didn’t realise at first was that some of the actors were already sitting amongst us.
The play opened with dark mysterious music. Two of the actors were staring at each other and screamed out from the other side of the bus, “You’re dead to me”. Then they began to talk, but over each other, in a way that sometimes made it hard to follow the conversation.
The performers had only had five days to rehearse, so I wasn’t surprised when there was a minute of silence because someone forgot their lines and the prompter needed to step in. But the performances were strong, and I left the bus keen to see more of this group’s work.
Actor Harrison Snell told me that “the script was challenging to interpret, and the actors had to find their own pathways through”. And I have to admit that, as far as the deeper meanings behind the play were concerned, I found my own way through quite challenging as well.
But then Kane’s work is not easy, and critics have pointed out that Crave dispenses with plot to a greater extent than any of her other work. But this imaginative and passionate production makes me recommend that you search out future UEL Performing Arts productions.
