Sarah Kane’s fourth play was commissioned by Vicky Featherstone, Artistic Director (and subsequently director of Crave), of the new writing company Paines Plough. It was written partly in Britain and partly in the United States while Kane was working for New Dramatists, a New York new writing company. Crave is noteworthy in that it marked a shift in terms of formal structure. More of a tone poem than a conventional drama, the published playtext states: “Crave marks a departure in Sarah’s work. Having pioneered a new theatre where brutality and action express an emotional narrative, here she deploys language like music. Rhythm and orchestration are as vital here as content to understanding and responding to the play.”

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Published 21 June 2004

Citation: Sierz, Aleks, and Graham Saunders. "Crave". The Literary Encyclopedia. 21 June 2004.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=15074, accessed 9 February 2010.]