We are currently in the era of the Postmodern. In turn, this era had to originate from another era with some kind of revolution of the mind as well as draw from that of several influences to strengthen and allow the notions and characteristics of the era to grow. Some of these influences came from that of the art world, especially with playwrights such as Sarah Kane.
Kane was born in Britain, 3 February 1971 and died on the 20th February 1999. She was known for her plays that were filled with violence, depression, death and sexual nature. There would always be something poetic about the style in which Kane wrote, in an intense and aggressive way to unnerve the audience and raise certain questions about the barriers that have been …show more content…
It is the more visual era as well that focused on what was seen (Leicester 2000: 78).
Postmodernism also reached out into the theatre; many theatres started housing productions of a postmodern nature. Performance itself attempts to show the ‘real’ on stage; an imitation of life by identifiable acts taking place on stage and creating another world on stage in order to expose certain ‘truths’ about the ‘real’ (Stevens 2004: 99).
When engaging about acting performances in the theatre (stylized in a postmodern way) there is usually a dissonance between the text and the action. It seemingly goes against that of the ‘real’ in this way (as in the real, there is a relationship that works in coordination between text and action). (Stevens 2004: 102).
There is a dissonance in the first scene of Cleansed when Tinker says he’s “cooking” (Kane 2001: 1) when he is actually distilling Heroin. This sets the tone that the text and action of characters may not always correlate. Another instance is Carl stating he will always love Rod and die for him when he refuses to die for Rod later in the