Postdramatisme et esthétique de l’indécidabilité dans Cleansed et Phaedra’s Love de Sarah Kane
Faced with the interpretive opacity and failure of language in the analysis of Sarah Kane’s violent plays, what approach could allow us to review the forms and means used by the playwright in order to leave her mark in the mind of the contemporary viewer? The paradigm of the post-dramatic theater, proposed by Hans-Thies Lehmann, constitutes an appropriate device for highlighting the contemporary issues at stake in the work of Kane. Since it strongly depends on the interpretation and the engagement of the viewer, the meaning of the plays are not univocal. Their spectral political nature proves essential here. This political spectrum reveals itself through the prism of violence. The necessity of shock appears to be its bias to redefine the role of theater in modern societies characterized by the flow of images through mass media. A link of co-responsibility between artist and viewer is created. Indeed as viewers/readers, Kane’s plays lead us to question ourselves on the mysterious and intimate depths of human cruelty and our complicity with the omnipresence of violence through consumption of its products. By focusing on the transgressive characteristics of Kane’s dramatic art that shake viewers out of their affective complacency through the references to "culture from below" and through the use of an obscene language and imagery, and through the diversion of pornography’s codes, this postdramatic reading of Cleansed and Phaedra's love intends to restore the energy inherent in Kane’s work. It is an energy that aims for radical change by awakening our senses.
Sarah Kane Théâtre "In-Yer-Face" In-Yer-Face theatre Violence Postdramatic theatre Political spectrum Pornographic imagination Culture from below Aesthetics of undecidability Nasty nineties