Sarah Kane And Her "In-Yer-Face Theater"

Sarah Kane(1971-1999)was the representative personage of In-Yer-Face Theater and one of the most important dramatists in contemporary England.She left five plays in her twenty-eight years of short life.However,it did not prevent her from being the new playwright whose number of works is the largest being performed around the world.In the theater,she is a people who can?t be ignored.At the same time,her plays are the must-read works of students who learn theater.What?s more,she had received much concern due to the fact that the advanced nature of her play form and drama style,the violence,abnormal sex and psychosis in her works,and her lesbian identity.This paper will look Sarah Kane as the representative personage of In-Yer-Face Theater,doing typical and over-all analysis about her.The first part will start from her script,and analyze how to present the social reality of the disciplines.This part mainly talks about the power operation and rank order through the analysis of the “stare” and masochism in the context.Finally,pointing out that her works suggest the strategy of “irrationality” to revolt against the existing system or order.The second part of the passage uses Kane?s proposition and attempt about the drama as the entry part,mainly discusses her advanced attempt about the revolution of the drama form and the challenge of the discipline social reality.This section mainly discusses “the material language” and “the regression of the original ceremony”.By talking about these topics,conclude that her works inheritance,development and change of the past drama form.At the same time,analyze the transcendence and negativity of the form itself to social reality.The third chapter explores the effect of Kane?s In-Yer-Face Theater.The first section of the chapter mainly analyzes the “plague effect” of Kane?s works combining with Artaud?s drama theory;the second section of the chapter mainly analyzes the revolutionary value and significance of Kane?s drama through Marcuse?s “new sensibility” theory.The improvement of the existing problems in the study of the past and the innovative significance mainly focus on the following aspects: First of all,the works of the in-yer-face theater especially Kane?s works always present the social phenomenon such as violence,sex,drug abuse and so on,so the domestic study of the past obsessed with the characteristics of these drama induction and summary.However,they ignored the social and psychological roots behind the phenomenon,so the first part of the article focused on mining social and psychological roots of the works.Secondly,the study of Kane is focused on the analysis of the text.However,Kane's “in-yer-face theater” is more named from the performance of the theater.This article is not confined to the study of the script,the second part?s analysis mainly concentrate on Kane's theater proposition and stage practice,to seek the meaning of the theater and the rebellion and transcendence of social reality in the aspect of the innovation of theater form.What?s more,regarding Kane?s works as the representative of the “in-yer-face theater” can provide reference of the study of the genre.The study of “in-yer-face theater” writers' works in China is just emerging,such as Anthony Nelson and Martin Mc Donald.The study of Kane also allows us to better grasp the historical context and the spirit of the modern times.So it can lay the foundation for the study of other writers of this genre.