Sarah Kane’s Blasted forces us to witness every conceivable type of psychological and physical violence. It requires tremendous fortitude to watch. But its sincere frankness hits home.

Blasted. By Sarah Kane; Gregory Scott Campbell directed. Luna Theater Company production through March 5, 2011 at Upstairs at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St. (866) 811-4111 or www.lunatheater.org. 

Seeing is believing

In Greek tragedies, the major action takes place offstage. We don’t watch Oedipus gouge out his own eyes, nor do we draw warmth from the pyre on which Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia. Only after Media slaughters her children unseen does she drag their corpses into view.

Sarah Kane’s Blasted affords no such protection from the horrors of human depravity. In Luna Theater Company’s startling, intrepid production, we witness rape, cannibalism and brutal depictions of psychological and physical violence.

Kane’s play opens on a hotel room in Leeds, where a middle-aged journalist (John Jezior’s Ian) attempts to reconnect with his dimwitted, early-20-something former girlfriend Cate (Haley McCormick). In rebuffing his vulgar and insult-laden advances, she falls into an epileptic seizure. Ian doesn’t hesitate to take advantage of her helplessness.

From this act of domestic violence, Kane draws an unwavering line to the ethnic cleansing and mass rapes of Rwanda, Bosnia and elsewhere. The setting suddenly shifts to a conflict-ravaged land. A solider (Jerry Rudasill) bursts through the door of a house and inflicts inflict sexual and physical atrocities on its occupants.

Beyond Mamet’s words

Director Gregory Scott Campbell and his three actors lead us to the precipice of Kane’s horror-filled world and then shove us over the edge. Campbell’s blocking and Michael Cosenza’s fight choreography yield some of the most potent and convincing stage violence I’ve seen. Luna’s past production of David Mamet’s Oleanna provided a similarly unsettling evening of theater. But the immense disquietude of Blasted easily surpassed Mamet’s aggression, which was merely verbal.

Jezior’s grotesque journalist lumbers about repulsively, dripping with sweat and gesticulating in conniption-like fits— whether groping blindly, masturbating, swilling gin or suffering from cardiac arrest. At times I could feel his boozy breath wafting out into the audience.

McCormick provides no innocent female foil to his nastiness. She gleefully cackles at horrifying events and easily sidesteps troubling moral calculations. Rudasill’s lip-smacking eagerness as the soldier evokes the terror of a mugging at knifepoint.

Struggles with depression

The ancient Greek playwrights knew that plays filled with brutality wouldn’t achieve the terror and the pity necessary to elicit catharsis. Sarah Kane, by contrast, didn’t live long enough to acquire that insight: She struggled with depression for most of her brief adulthood and hung herself at 28.

Nevertheless, the sincere frankness of Blasted hits home in many respects. We ignore far-away suffering but lap up the sensationalized accounts of celebrity violence; we laugh or deride incomprehensible terrors; look askance at bright young people who “throw away” promising futures to help repair strife in foreign lands.

Where the Greeks utilized catharsis to expand the boundaries of empathy, Kane similarly challenges her audience’s humanity and compassion. Can we see the tattered shards of benevolence trying to survive amidst barbarity? Can we look past the atrocities of war to find the remnants of goodness in even the most vicious perpetrators of violence?

Blasted requires courage to produce and greater fortitude to watch. I wouldn’t recommend it as a first night at the theater. But if you’re looking to test your comfort zone and push the limits of your understanding, it’s an absolute must-see.