Twenty years after it opened to critical incomprehension and outrage , there’s no way that Sarah Kane’s Blasted can be dismissed as a naive shocker. It’s far too smartly crafted for that. The play wears its magpie borrowings on its sleeve – from Brecht to Beckett to Pinter – and still rings loudly with the clarity of Kane’s own bell-like Cassandra voice.
Even if you know what’s coming, as the racist and abusive middle-aged journalist Ian (Martin Marquez) checks into a swish, anonymous hotel room with the epileptic teenage waif Cate, and proceeds to rape her, this is a play that makes you sit up as if you’ve suffered an electric shock. Richard Wilson’s revival never wavers in holding up the mirror. The glass windows through which Cate gazes silently, as if seeing unspeakable horrors, look out directly over the audience, and as the play explodes open we start to see ourselves reflected back.
Wilson’s production doesn’t quite sustain its intensity throughout, but it always refuses to rush, which is a good thing. Designer James Cotterill and lighting designer Paul Keogan create a nightmarish world that echoes both Cate’s fits and the failing electricity supply as the hotel room becomes a war zone.
Twenty years ago, many said that Kane overplayed the scenario of violence as a soldier (Mark Stanley) bursts into the hotel room and perpetrators become victims in an endless cycle of appalling atrocities and slaughter.
Recent history has taught us that we were wrong to think that, or that distant wars had nothing to do with us and we are safe. But, for all its jolting violence, this is a play touched with a terrible tenderness, too: it will be a long time before I forget the image of Jessica Barden’s cracked, porcelain doll-like Cate, feeding bread to the dying Ian as if he’s a blind baby bird.
• Until 21 February. Box office: 0114-249 6000. Venue: Sheffield theatres
