Somehow it is now a quarter of a century since Crave was first staged in Edinburgh and began to change the way that SARAH KANE’s work was perceived and received. This realisation alone feels startling but nowhere near as startling as HER Productions’ stark and relentless revival at Manchester’s 53two theatre. Director CHRIS LAWSON‘s production does not pause for breath and it grips the throat and the heart all the way through the fifty minutes it takes to unfold.
In the atmospheric darkness of a bare-bricked railway arch, four chairs in a row are picked out in low, misty light. Their pale thin legs bring to mind spider crabs, white giants pulled from darkest undersea realms to an environment where they will never survive. Onto these waiting chairs come four characters, people barely named. The chairs may be their anchors but these people do not spend much of Crave sitting down. Instead they stride and menace and sway and crouch and crawl. Speaking all the time. Their voices, their words, words chosen and positioned by Sarah Kane are as much a musical composition as a dramatic one. As far from Easy Listening as can be, this is insistent and disturbing music to rattle the soul.
If each character’s voice is a musical instrument then there are solo passages spoken as fast as urges. Just as characters sometimes mirror one another in posture, sometimes their words synchronise, or appear to synchronise, with another character’s words to form a kind of dialogue. Never a conversation. The conversations come much later in the minds of the audience because this is a work that strikes deeply and lingers long. At an emotional level. And because the theme at the heart of Crave is love, those emotions are fear and shame and loathing and lust. Hearts are bloody organs and flowers grow wild on waste ground where misery is born.
The relationships the characters have to each other -if they have any at all- is never spelled out and yet they fit together as perfectly as the individual instruments in a chamber orchestra. Neither are their ages specified. The character of M is a Black woman who could be anywhere between late twenties and early forties, partly because her emotional and physical exhaustion with life is so evident. Meanwhile, A claims at one point to be “fat and fifty” despite not appearing to be either. But can we believe anything this man says when he is clearly a lifelong manipulator to say the least? That these people sometimes speak dishonestly while a brutal overall truth remains tangible throughout is one measure of Kane’s rare authorial genius. A further blurring of the characters’ ages is the result of them speaking from different times in their lives. C is a younger woman than M and frequently speaks as a child. B is younger than A but no less a disturbing and pitiable man. What they all have in common is longing, terror and rage. These emotions ebb and flow in them as individuals but also coalesce into a shattering whole.
Each role here is perfectly cast. Hauntingly powerful, ETTA FUSI makes us feel terrified for M and her future while as A, JAKE FERRETTI simply makes us feel terrified. The sheer vulnerability of C is obvious to a heartbreaking degree, thanks to the luminous intensity of ELIZABETH MEDDOWS. B, the worrying enigma in the quartet is portrayed with angsty self-pity by MATTHEW HEYWOOD. What the distinctive performances have in common is their reality and their endless depth. And the synchronicity of course, which is Chris Lawson’s great gift to this production. For all that the audience often feels strafed by unstoppable words, Sarah Kane selected every one of those words with great precision and Lawson makes sure that each one lands perfectly in terms of both sound and meaning. A lot of this is achieved through the performances of his cast but exemplary lighting and sound design play their part. DYLAN TATE uses blackouts, soft atmospheric washes and sudden bright highlights that are sharp and shocking as exposed bones. Fused with these is the subtle and nervy soundscape of ELIYANA EVANS. As with everything else about this remarkable, brutal production each element works perfectly and unites to form a coherent whole that cannot easily be shaken off by the mind.
NB. This production comes with many content warnings and prior examination of these is strongly advised.
Written by: Sarah Kane
Directed by: Chris Lawson
Producer: Hannah Ellis Ryan (HER Productions)
Lighting Design: Dylan Tate
Sound Design: Eliyana Evans
Cast:
Jake Ferretti (A)
Etta Fusi (M)
Matthew Heywood (B)
Elizabeth Meddows (C)
Theatre Va-va-voom! 