"Blasted" is Sarah Kane's first full-length play which opened in 1995 and was the sensation of that year's theatre season, making front-page headlines and outraging some critics who thought her premise that there was a connection between a rape in a Leeds hotel room and the hellish devastation of civil war was simply an attempt to shock audiences. The questions raised in this play about violence are at the heart of Kane's writing.

With an introduction by Graham Whybrow, literary manager of the Royal Court Theatre, this anthology collects the defining plays of the 1980s and 1990s in one volume - Top Girls 'The best British play ever from a woman dramatist' (The Guardian) Hysteria 'One of the most brilliantly original and entertaining new plays I have seen in years' (The Sunday Times) Blasted 'Her dialogue is both sparse and stunning. They will call her mad, but then they said that about Strindberg' (Mail on Sunday) Shopping and F***ing 'A real coup de theatre' (Evening Standard) The Beauty Queen of Leenane 'The most wickedly funny, brilliantly abrasive young dramatist ...a born storyteller' (New York Times)The result is a collection of "must reads" that's excellent value for students and theatre fans alike.

I know you want to punish me, trying to make me live. In 1995 Sarah Kane's first full-length play Blasted sent shockwaves throughout the theatrical world. Making front-page headlines, the play outraged critics with its depiction of rape, torture and violence in civil war. However, from being roundly condemned by the critics the play is now considered a seminal work of European theatre and has defined an entire era of stage writing. In an expensive hotel room in Leeds, Ian, a middle-aged tabloid journalist, sits with his teenage lover Cate who he attempts to seduce and eventually rapes. As reality dissipates, the room becomes embroiled in civil war as a soldier invades the space and the play descends into apocalyptic scenes of brutality. Blasted's canonical status reflects the raw beauty and terror of Kane's writing. Probing the brutality people inflict upon one another, the suffering and violation, the play also looks at the role of love and the redemption it offers. Unafraid to delve into darkness, this is a provocative, fragmenting piece full of significance and power. Blasted premiered at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in January 1995. Methuen Drama's iconic Modern Plays series began in 1959 with the publication of Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey and has grown over six decades to now include more than 1000 plays by some of the best writers from around the world. This new special edition hardback of Blasted was published to celebrate 60 years of Methuen Drama's Modern Plays in 2019, chosen by a public vote and features a brand new foreword by Mel Kenyon.

"4.48 Psychosis" sees the ultimate narrowing of Sarah Kane's focus in her work. The struggle of the self to remain intact has moved in her work from civil war, into the family, into the couple, into the individual, and finally into the theatre of phychosis: the mind itself. This play was written in 1999 shortly before the playwright took her own life at age 28. On the page, the piece looks like a poem. No characters are named, and even their number is unspecified. It could be a journey through one person's mind, or an interview between a doctor and his patient.

When Blasted was first produced at the Royal Court in 1995 it was hailed jointly as a masterpiece and a 'disgusting piece of filth' (Daily Mail). Subsequently that play, and the others that followed, have been produced all over the world. This anthology includes Kane's never-before-published Channel 4 screenplay, Skin."Kane wrote simply and starkly about the world she saw around her...a mature and vividly theatrical response to the pain of living." Guardian

A rewriting of the Phaedra myth, "Phaedra's Love" continued Kane's fragmentation of naturalism, and was her first play to deal explicitly with what was to become her main theme: love. Hippolytus, the spoiled prince, is driven to preserve his self inviolate. Emotions, particularly love, and need of any type are an unbearable threat to the prince. Phaedra, his stepmother, is in love with him. The impossibility of the situation leads to their bloody destruction.

This stunning play from the controversial author of Blasted premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London in spring 1998 A provocative play from the notorious author of Blasted, which probes the nightmarish world of twenty-somethings coming to grips with sexuality, social ostracism and the effects of drugs. Cleansed premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in spring 1998.Kane's first play Blasted caused major controversy, furore and acclaim amongst critics and throughout the theatre world

This Student Edition of Sarah Kane's seminal play "Blasted" features expert and helpful annotation and is an accessible guide for anyone studying or performing the play. This includes a scene-by-scene summary, a detailed commentary on the dramatic, social and political context, and on the themes, characters, language and structure of the play, as well a list of suggested reading, questions for further study and a review of performance history.

In 1995 Sarah Kane's first full-length play "Blasted" sent shockwaves throughout the theatrical world. Making front-page headlines, the play outraged critics with its depiction of rape, torture and violence in civil war. At its debut "Blasted" was roundly condemned by theatre critics like the Daily Mail who decried it as a "disgusting feast of filth." Today, however, this play is considered a seminal work of European theatre and has defined an era of stage writing.

"Blasted'"s canonical status reflects the raw beauty and terror of Kane's writing. Probing the brutality people inflict upon one another, the suffering and violation, the play also looks at the role of love and the redemption it offers. Unafraid to delve into darkness, this is a provocative, fragmenting piece full of significance and power.

Set in an unnamed city from which voices and images spring, Crave charts the disintegration of a human mind under the pressures of love, loss and desire "A hugely unnerving theatrical experience, shot through with the language of the Bible and a genuinely poetic richness" (Time Out) "A dramatic poem in the late-Beckett style, sometimes a chamber quartet for lost voices" (The Times) Produced by Paines Plough and Bright Ltd (Guy Chapman and Paul Spyker), Crave premiered at the Traverse Theatre for the 1998 Edinburgh Festival. It received its English premiere at the Royal Court Theatre in September 1998.