https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1fHSXfx14_RUWvCKb0v6WKOdVpvvE5qVnSZX9Z5WtWI8/edit#slide=id.p
In my presentation I gave a summary of the story Blasted and explained the three great issues I believed the story was addressing. As for the performance of this play, I believe it would be best suited in Kansas City due to contradicting opinions and approaches to racism that Kansas and Missouri have. Within this position statement I will be expressing the importance of this play.
Reading the story Blasted by Sarah Kane was very unsettling, yet eye opening. When looking into he meaning I took three different positions, my body my choice, sex trafficking and racism. Within this statement I will be looking into and discussing the relevance and effects of racism within the play Blasted and period it was created. I will also shine light on how racism effects the rest of the traumatic experiences.
Racism has been an issue and one of the roots of war since the beginning. But how do we express this in a way that people will listen. Therefore, Sarah Kane represented race as an issue, but not a problem people want to solve. It the play the hard n-word is used to describe people of color. In the eyes of the white characters, these people of color are the cause of the war and the reason all the bad has come. Without remorse, many people of color were killed, raped and mutilated. But what did the people around them care about? In the play they characters do not care about other people, they only care about food and sex.
Blasted was first showed in 1995 and the setting of the play is also in the 1990s, when brutality and abuse subjected to race began to rise. As racism continues to be an issue, not until recently did the fight against racism boil. Similar to Ian and Cate in the play, they do not acknowledge the war that is going on right outside their window until it hits them directly in the face. I believe this is similar in the case of how society has ignored and lived along size racism for so long. Especially people who are white and closed minded, like to believe that racism is not a big issue and is not important.
Furthermore, this is where in my presentation I related Sarah Kane’s controversial writing to the three monkeys, “monkey no see, no hear, no speak.” Kane was one of the few creators of her time to speak up about the traumas that are apparent, yet not talked about, AKA racism and others. Therefore, this play is so important to then and now. Although racism isn’t directed at white people, it affects everyone negatively, whether we like it or not.
Regan, I really liked your idea of staging the play in KC, which juxtaposes the way Missouri and Kansas have dealt with race in the past. Both were sites of bloody guerilla warfare during the Civil War. Kansas, an abolitionist Union state, and Missouri, a state that claimed the Union, but was also admitted to the confederacy. Since the civil war, both states have had continued histories with racism-- it was not that long ago that there was a lynching right here in Lawrence. Additionally, in context of woman's corporeal rights, the recent referendum in Kansas, is a great context to talk about the impositions of women's bodys and female bodily autonomy.
Regan, I thought the three positions you brought up were really intriguing and any one of them could be focused on. I thought your focus on BLM and overall racism was a good choice considering it's a driving force of the plot and works to characterize many of the characters. I also thought the monkey with the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" was really interesting. I loved the way you tied it into the fear of expression and how Kane overcame these obstacles.
Regan, at first, I founded interesting the relation you made with the Black lives matter and My body my choice to the play. It really surprised me how these are completely related and visible throughout the whole play. It really gave me another insight in the play. I totally agree that there has to be a conference or a talk after the play is presented to talk about more in depth the themes of the play specially the sexual trafficking here in Kansas. I really like your production take on that there is a narrator, and the actors are just sitting down and representing. That is what I really liked about the play because it can have many different types…