Sarah Kane /

Sarah Kane (3 February 1971 – 20 February 1999) was an English playwright. Her plays deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, torture — both physical and psychological — and death. They are characterised by a poetic intensity, pared-down language, exploration of theatrical form and, in her earlier work, the use of extreme and violent stage action. Kane herself, as well as scholars of her work, such as Graham Saunders, identify some of her inspirations as expressionist theatre and Jacobean tragedy. Critics, including Aleks Sierz, have seen her work as part of what Sierz calls the In-Yer-Face style of theatre, a form of drama which broke away from the conventions of naturalist theatre. Kane's published work consists of five plays, one short film, Skin, and two newspaper articles for The Guardian. Born in Brentwood, Essex, and raised by evangelical parents, Kane was a committed Christian in adolescence. Later, however, she rejected those beliefs. After attending Shenfield High School, she studied drama at Bristol University, graduating in 1992, and went on to take an MA course in playwriting at Birmingham University, led by the playwright David Edgar.