Lawrence, 20 September 2022 – This week in the Theatre and Visual Culture class, Sercius Productions presented a summary and pitched the idea on doing the play Blasted. In this blog we will transcribe what was said, I recomend to use the Pecha Kucha link above to follow the presentation. Blasted is the first play by the British playwright Sarah Kane. Blasted was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs London on January 12, 1995. The play is set in an expensive hotel room in Leeds, England we have in a racist, homophobic, misogynist journalist bringing a young emotionally fragile and intellectually simple women Cate to the room for the night. Here Ian tries to seduce Kate, but she refuses him. This made Ian sexually assault her later a soldier enters the scene and where a bomb drops, and the soldier now assaulted sexually and sucked Ian's eyes out and so on…
It is clear, that the play is dark and harrowing. Reviews were all over the place due to the brazen explicit imagery of the play. One highlighting review being “a disgusting feast filth”. Sarah Kane work dealt with themes of love, sex, pain torture and death. Kane struggled with depression, and it is unavoidable to link that into her work. After her death by suicide reviews reassessed the play. Things like “She was a major talent a poet”, “It is and always was a play with a fine moral purpose”, even considered by The Independent one of the 40th best plays ever.
Now the question you all might be asking, why this play? Blasted is a provocative, influential potent theatrical vision of destruction, collapse and ultimately redemption and love. This play addresses the war and conflict and sexual assault something that in today's present it is still seen and pretty much relevant. Why now? Blasted can open up an interesting conversation because of the themes and imagery that the play entails and puts the audience to connect their minds in suggestion and play with their vanity. Blasted was a response of the Bosnia conflict by the time. by the plate being a representation of what types of things happen during the conflict and a critique to news media in general. The play, it really depicts the reality of what happens during and even before war there's not only occurs over there but literally everywhere.
Let's talk about business, with this type of play there is some variety of ways it can be produced might take will be more experimental it is a great opportunity for the production team meaning light sound movers and make up. Personally, I'm not a fan on censoring the artist art but for display I propose playing with the light within those scenes that are extremely explicit highlighting only parts that can be exposed in the scene or even use none and leave it in dark. When it comes to sound wise there's so much, we can play with in creating that changing ambient so we can make the audience feel even more immersed in the play.
In the technical side it is a great play to work on and my proposed place to stage it is right here in Lawrence KS Kansas University in the William Inge Memorial Theatre which is a black box venue perfect place for staging experimental pieces. We have chosen Kansas and its university because there is a concern on the themes that the play presents (War, Conflict and Sexual assault). We will make a play conference after the show to talk about these concerns, more specifically about sexual assault. A social worker and psychologist will be available to help us with this matter. The intention of doing this play is not to re-traumatize victims but to create a safe space to discuss it and put the general public in perspective. To generate sympathy with the Kansas red audience, we are aware of their beliefs and positions on war related issues. It is for this reason that with them in mind, the best way is through a spokesperson who is sympathetic to a republican audience that is aware of the effects of war and not war. Then again specifically against sexual assault.
The play is proposed to have four presentations ideally Thursday Friday Saturday and Sunday the hours of the presentations are still in the talks, but it is prefer being two shows in the afternoon and two shows at night. when it comes to casting, we will conduct auditions we will try to find and make display work best as possible we will really prefer that the age range could be accurate as possible as stated by the author to create that sense of the age difference between the characters of the play.
We made a preliminary expense and budget table that is intended for the play to be presented at the William Inge Memorial Theatre in KU. There will be four performances at a cost of $25/each. The theater has a maximum seating capacity of approximately 100 people. With no capacity limits and a "full house" for the four performances, we are talking about a profit of approximately $10,000 minus $4,770 of expenses we’ll have $5,230 in total remaining. I hope that with all that is mentioned above You the reader can approve and support on making this possible. Thanks for reading and hope to be having your support.
Sources:
Alicea Roman, S. L. (2022). Sercius Productions: “Blasted” Play Pitch. Pechakucha. https://www.pechakucha.com/presentations/sergios-presentation-427
Kane, S. (1995). Blasted.
The Independent (2019) "The 40 best plays to read before you die".
Sergio, thank you for summarizing your presentation to give a refresher. I really appreciated how in-depth and broad you went with your presentation. You really hit all of the boxes. If I was the one deciding if this play was being aired, I would definitely go with your approach. I found it very useful that you included every part of formulating the play. Great job.
Sergio, I really admired your presentation in class. After re-reading your presentation in the form of this blog, I was yet again amazed with the dynamic language you use, which really sold the audience your pitch. As someone who has no practical or logistical knowledge of play production (I strictly work with theatre/performance as a cultural product), I learned a lot from your discussion on when and how the play would be staged. I too really liked the idea of a small intimate setting! Finally, your talkback idea was great and something I too would include when staging a play like this.
Sergio, I wanted to say how impressed I was with your presentation in class. It was well organized and the script you had prepared was timed perfectly. I also thought your analysis of Blasted and its connection with war themes and imagery was very well done. I agree that art like this shouldn't be censored, however, I also agree that a show like this covers a lot of traumatic content and should be treated accordingly.