If we’ve learned anything from director Will Detlefsen, it’s that Sarah Kane’s Blasted should be done very, very well or not at all. This is a play that hits us so many times over the head that we should leave the theater weak kneed and punch drunk. But when, early on, Ian (Jason de Beer) rapes an unconscious Cate (Marié Botha) while holding a gun to her head, he conspicuously leaves his pants on and unzipped. And while we should be thinking, “He isn’t really doing that,” we are instead thinking, “He isn’t really doing that.” Blasted demands a lot from its actors, but more importantly it requires a director who is willing to make those demands. It lives and dies based on these moments—Cate’s rape is really just a overture to the kind of depravity we will witness—so when they begin in failure the whole work sags. Even an average production of Blasted, it seems, will play as juvenile if it can’t play as shocking; when we are not frozen in disbelief, Kane’s devastating depiction of humanity seems nasty simply for the purpose of being nasty, like the work of an angry fourteen-year-old who writes about rape simply to offend those who are nervous around the word rape. Continue reading “Three Actors in Search of a Director”