Sarah Kane’s Theatre of Psychic Life

Theatre, Thought and Mental Suffering

Leah Sidi

$170

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Methuen Drama
06 April 2023

Theatre Studies; Literary studies: plays & playwrights; Care of the mentally ill

Series: Methuen Drama Engage

Sarah Kane was one of the landmark playwrights of 1990s Britain, her influence being felt across UK and European theatre. This is the first book to focus exclusively on Kane’s unique approach to mind and mental health. It offers an important re-evaluation of her oeuvre, revealing the relationship between theatre and mind which lies at the heart of her theatrical project.

Drawing on performance theory, psychoanalysis and neuroscience, this book argues that Kane’s innovations generate a ‘dramaturgy of psychic life’, which re-shapes the encounter between stage and audience. It uses previously unseen archival material and contemporary productions to uncover the mechanics of this innovative theatre practice.

Through a radically open-ended approach to dramaturgy, Kane’s works offer urgent insights into mental suffering that take us beyond traditional discourses of empathy and mental health and into a profound rethinking of theatre as a mode of thought. As such, her theatre can help us to understand debates about mental suffering today.

By: Leah Sidi
Imprint: Methuen Drama
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 138mm,
ISBN: 9781350283121
ISBN 10: 1350283126
Series: Methuen Drama Engage
Pages: 232
Publication Date: 06 April 2023
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction: Revisiting Kane - Why Kane? - The question of biography: mental health and politics - Context: Mental Health in the 1990s: Phaedra’s Love and ‘community care plays’ Chapter 1: Plays and playing: The Dramaturgy of Psychic Life - A Starting Point: Experientialism and the mind - Dramaturgy - Theatre and thought - Psychic life and psychoanalysis - Crave with Paine’s Plough (1998): Exploring Experientialism Chapter 2: The stage as traumatic space - Kane’s Feminist Legacies: Feminist theatre and sexual trauma - Theatre as a theoretical response? PTSD and mimetic traumas - Blasted : The psychic life of sexual trauma - Blasted at the Crucible: A trauma reading Chapter 3: Rhythm, Interruption, Psychosis - Phaedra’s Love to Cleansed: A dramaturgical turning point - Dramaturgical tools: Prediction and interruption in Cleansed and Crave - A cognitive reading: Psychosis and prediction errors - Influence on Kane from Strindberg and Artaud - Cleansed at the National Theatre: Playing it against the text Chapter 4: The Mind as Theatrical Site - Crave and 4.48 Psychosis as ‘mental health’ plays - The mind-as-site - Neoliberal healthcare and psychosis: dramaturgical responses to political changes - 4.48 Psychosis at the Lyric Hammersmith: splitting the mind into space Chapter 5: RSVP ASAP - Kane and desire: What does theatre want? - Suicidality: returning to Kane’s sources - Staging desire: An apostrophic reading with Barbara Johnson - 4.48 Psychosis by the Belarus Free Theatre: Queer love and suicidality Conclusion: Looking ahead: Kane and the future of ‘mental health’ Bibliography Index

Leah Sidi is Lecturer in Health Humanities at University College London, UK. Her research focus is on contemporary theatre and mental health, with a special focus on feminist theatre and psychoanalysis. She has been the recipient of the Feminist Review Archive Award and a Wellcome/ISSF postdoctoral award at Birkbeck, University of London, UK. She has published in Performance Research and is a regular contributor to the Institute for Medical Humanities’ The Polyphony.

Reviews for Sarah Kane’s Theatre of Psychic Life: Theatre, Thought and Mental Suffering

Sarah Kane’s Theatre of Psychic Life is an incisive and eloquent account of the necessity of Kane, the necessity of theatre, and the necessity of interdependence. Sidi’s book offers a persuasive argument for the fecundity of desolation. * anna harpin, Head of Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Warwick, UK * Though Sarah Kane’s work is steeped in despair, this fascinating and compassionate book offers hope in its vision of her theatre as a place where our darkest and most intensely personal experiences are transformed into an investigation into the political and psychological landscape of our society. * Professor of Contemporary Theatre, Royal Holloway University of London, UK *