Off The Grid Theatre Company Revives "Blasted" by Sarah Kane

BLASTED

When Sarah Kane's "Blasted" opened in London in 1995, it was met with shock and revulsion. In the intervening decades, proliferating terrorist attacks and asymmetrical warfare and its aftershocks have modulated the ways in which we tend to look at the horrors portrayed in this three character play. Off The Grid Theatre Company has chosen to revive the play for Boston audiences. The play is not for the faint of heart, for it features many forms of explicit violence, degradation, and abuse.

The action occurs in a generic hotel room in a war zone, and involves these three characters:

• Ian (Christopher James Webb), a jaded, racist and misogynistic journalist turned spy and possibly executioner who has invited to his hotel room a former girlfriend.
• Cate (Alexis Scheer) is a naive epileptic girl who is both drawn to and repulsed by Ian, who abuses her in a variety of ways.
• Soldier (Maurice Emmanuel Parent) enters the hotel room halfway through the play.  He describes in gory detail many of the atrocities that he has seen and committed, and eventually perpetrates some of them upon Ian.  Abuser becomes the abused in a mobius strip of unrelenting violence. And the beat goes on.

Maurice Emmanuel Parent as Soldier
Christopher James Webb as Ian
"Blasted" by Sarah Kane
Off The Grid Theatre Company
Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA
Through September 18th

The playwright brings a very nihilistic world view to her framing of this play, its actions, and its characters.  It is instructive to know that Ms. Kane committed suicide within four years of penning "Blasted," so it is not unreasonable to speculate that she may have been using her writing as an attempt to exorcise some of her own inner demons. Despite the dark penumbra that hovers over this work, there are glimmers of light and tenderness, especially as the play closes and Cate is feeding the blinded Ian scraps of bread in an effort to ease his suffering.  Perhaps Ms. Kane is saying that no matter how deeply the ethos of warfare drives us into depravity, there still remains shreds or crumbs of humanity.

Alexis Scheer as Cate

Christopher James Webb as Ian

"Blasted" by Sarah Kane

Off The Grid Theatre Company

Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA

Through September 18th

The main reason to see this dark drama is to behold the stunning work of these three superb actors. Mr. Webb is frightening in his depiction of a man who once was loving and loveable, but who has gone off the rails to the point that he can take advantage of a helpless Cate. Ms. Scheer paints a picture of a fragile young woman who is so girlish as to delight in jumping on the bed in the hotel room, yet complex enough to be both drawn to and repelled by Ian's descent into oblivion. Maurice Emmanuel Parent as Soldier tells us with his eyes that something has left the soul of this man, leaving behind a frightful spectre with nothing left to lose. Director John Kuntz draws out of each actor levels of emotion that range from almost catatonic to in extremis.

Alexis Scheer as Cate

Christopher James Webb as Ian
Maurice Emmanuel Parent as Soldier

"Blasted" by Sarah Kane

Off The Grid Theatre Company

Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA

Through September 18th

The scenic design by Ryan Bates includes a platform that seems to float, giving the impression of the hotel room being high up in the building, allowing the occupants to look down at the world out of the hotel room windows. Lighting is by Jeff Adelberg, Costumes by Lara de Bruijn, and Sound by David Reiffel.

The play runs at Boston Center for the Arts through September 18th.

Al