Theatre / Blasted

Soldier: Give us a cig.
Ian: Why?
Soldier: 'Cuz I've got a gun and you haven't.

Blasted, first performed in 1995, is the first and most (in)famous play by Sarah Kane.

It starts out fairly conventional, if dark: Ian, a nasty, bigoted middle-aged journalist, has taken a gentle and possibly simple-minded young woman named Cate back to his expensive hotel room in Leeds. The first scene is the two of them talking, Ian making advances upon Cate and proudly espousing all sorts of bigotry. After a particularly unpleasant bit of sexual violence, Cate retreats to the bathroom...

...and then a soldier bursts into the hotel room, followed soon thereafter by a mortar shell. That's when things get really dark.

Influenced by the atrocities of the Bosnian Civil War, Blasted received scornful reviews, even by the standards of the famously caustic British press, when it was first performed: the most notorious headline declared it a "disgusting feast of filth." Kane was devastated by these reviews, although those who knew her denied that it contributed to her suicide four years later. However, championed by playwrights such as Edward Bond and Harold Pinter, Blasted is now considered an uncompromising classic.

This work features the following tropes:

• And I Must Scream: Ian's ultimate fate: blinded, tortured, raped, and starving to death in a wrecked hotel room, with the universe seeming to conspire to keep him alive.
• Angry White Man:
  • Ian uses racist language, insults Cate's disabled brother and regularly writes trashy Daily Mail-styled articles in newspapers that caters to others of his kind: vile pearl-clutching British racists continually mad at immigrants coming in.
  • The Soldier is filled with sociopathic, genocidal fervour against whoever Britain's fighting, and gleefully recounts all the things he's done to his previous victims.
• Asshole Victim: Played with. Ian is a smarmy little abusive rapist racist, no doubt to rile up the audience into hoping he gets what he deserves. He does, in a violently cruel manner that no one, not even Ian, deserves.
• Ass Shove: The Soldier violates Ian with the barrel of a gun.
• Based on a True Story: The infamous eyeball scene was based on a section of Among the Thugs, Bill Buford's undercover investigation of a hooligan firm; in that book, the events happened to a police officer. The shift of the play into the war zone when the Soldier enters was based on the then-ongoing Bosnian Civil War.
• Break the Cutie: Cate starts the play with childlike innocence (and what's implied to be a mental disability), but her experience with Ian - to say nothing of the war - changes her considerably.
• Cessation of Existence: Ian believes that this happens after death, in contrast to Cate's belief that there has to be something.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: The Soldier inflicts this upon Ian, and it's made clear that he was far from the first.
• Cue the Rain: Rain is used to signify the end of each scene. It's also used to awaken Ian after he "dies" at the end of the play.
• Downer Ending: The war is still going on, Ian has suffered horrific atrocities, and Cate has prostituted herself for food. To make matters worse, the universe doesn't seem to want to let Ian die, and Cate's act of mercy is painted as just continuing his extended torture.
• Driven to Suicide: The Soldier manages it. Ian tries to, but can't quite do it.
• Eats Babies: Out of sheer desperation, a starving Ian digs up the corpse of the baby Cate brought in and eats it.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Ian is a proud bigot in many ways, but apparently has nothing against the Jews: "who have they hurt?" He's also sickened by the Soldier's atrocities (and by extension, the military's), although the fact that the Soldier's planning on visiting those atrocities upon him likely has something to do with it.
  • The Soldier chides Ian on the garbage he writes, and bitterly notes the racist rhetoric and propaganda he writes is nothing like what he's seen being done to civilians.
• Eye Scream: The Soldier sucks out Ian's eyes and eats them.
• Groin Attack: Cate bites Ian's penis after being forced to perform oral sex on him.
• Humans Are Bastards: This is a bleak, bleak play. Kane based the play on information coming out about the Bosnian Civil War from 1992 to 1995.
• Karma Houdini: Of a dark sort. The Soldier, after all he's done to Ian and countless other civilians, takes the easy way out on his terms. Compare Ian, who is a nasty far-right tabloid prick, being reduced to a shellshocked, raped, and blinded existence.
• Meat Versus Veggies: Cate is a vegetarian due to her extremely empathetic nature. When she eats a piece of sausage at the end, it's clear that the war has thoroughly broken her.
• Minimalism: The play goes from the naturalism of the early scenes to the more abstract war scenes, but retains a minimalist approach throughout.
• Minimalist Cast: There are only three characters, give or take a baby.
• No Name Given: The Soldier and the baby are never named.
• Politically Incorrect Villain:
  • Ian is unapologetically bigoted towards just about every minority (except, oddly enough, Jewish people.)
  • Likewise, the Soldier gloats about killing "them" (read: anyone not British-looking).
• Rape as Drama: Ian rapes Cate early on. The Soldier does the same to him.
• Sexual Karma: Ian rapes Cate, and is then raped in turn.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: The dialogue makes it clear the Soldier's seen a lot of fighting since the death of his girlfriend.
• Sociopathic Soldier: The Soldier claims to be motivated by the death of his girlfriend, and it's clear he's seen enough death and destruction to be put into a constant state of PTSD, but that doesn't make up for the atrocities he commits.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Despite (or indeed, because of) his noxious personality, Ian is an incredibly lonely man, disowned by his family and frightened of death.

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