Sarah Kane: BIOGRAPHY

Sarah Kane was born at 3 February 1971 in Brentwood, Essex and raised by evangelical parents.

She was a committed Christian in adolescence however she rejected those beliefs later in life.

Kane was an English playwright. Her plays deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain,

Torture –both psychological and physical- and death. They are characterized by a poetic intensity,

Pear-down language exploration of theatrical form and in her earlier work the use of extreme and

Violent stage action. Kane herself as well as solar of her work such as Graham Saunders identify

Some of her inspirations as expressionist theatre and Jacobean tragedy. She struggled with severe

Depression for many years and was twice admitted to the Mandsley Hospital. Some of her works

Are: Crave, Skin, 4.48 psychosis. She died in 1991 when two days after taking an overdose of

Prescription drugs she committed suicide by hanging herself by her shoelaces in a bathroom at

London’s King’s College Hospital.

Here is a quotation of her play “Crave”

“and have you steal my cigarettes and never be able to find a match and tell you about the programme

I saw the night before and take you to the eye hospital and not laugh at your jokes and want you in the

Morning but let you sleep for a while and kiss your back and stroke your skin and tell you how much I

Love your hair your eyes your lips your neck your breasts your arse