"Excited, impressed and a bit bamboozled" as Sarah Kane hits the CFT

“A lot of conversations have been had about trying to guess what people would like to see when they could go to the theatre again. A lot of offerings will be shots of pure joy and escapism, but I think it is also important to have shots that will be cathartic and releasing, plays that offer up space for you to have a primal scream.

“And this is more in that category! There is something about gathering together for the first time in ages and letting out our collective grief in that we have all lost something, a loved-one, work, whatever… It is good to all come together and go through something together and release something between us.”

Tinuke is directing Sarah Kane’s Crave in a socially distanced CFT for ten main-house performances which will be live streamed to digital audiences (October 29-November 7; live stream October 31-November 7).

The production, which was due to run in a specially erected Spiegeltent this autumn, is the sole survivor of an otherwise wiped-out summer season. It now serves as the opening show in a scaled-down autumn season.

Tinuke directed random & generations in Chichester’s Minerva Theatre a couple of years ago: “It was a really lovely experience, and I had been wanting to go back. We had been talking for a while about what work I wanted to do, and we were going back and forth for a while. (CFT artistic director) Daniel was not quite sure what the right fit would be, whether I should do something quite political again or whether I should do something very different, just what road to go down in terms of form and style. But Sarah Kane had been on Daniel’s mind for quite a while. When he first became artistic director, he felt it was a little bit soon to be doing Sarah Kane, but after however many seasons he has now done, he felt now was the time.

“I discovered Sarah Kane when I was in my late teens. A lot of teenagers do Sarah Kane on the A level syllabus. She is such an interesting writer. She is richly formally experimental… or maybe she is not being experimental at all. She is just doing what she is doing. Characters don’t always have names, and there is not necessarily a plot as we know it. I think Sarah Kane puts us through something rather than taking us on a journey. And as an audience, you just feel whatever you feel. It is really down to the audience, and I know that that can be frustrating. I am aware that some people will not like it. If it is not to your taste, it is not to your taste. She makes us sit together and have a collective individual experience. Whatever you feel is right. You can’t be wrong. And I know that that can be frustrating, but it is also liberating.”

In a damaged world, four characters search for the light. Angry, funny, defiant, kind and cruel, Crave comes promised as a deeply personal meditation on the meaning of love.

“You have got to go into it with an open mind and not be afraid to take whatever you want to take from it. Where Sarah Kane meets an audience, I think the difficulty comes from trying to solve it. And I know that can be frustrating where there is a sense that there is not a right answer. But I think you have just got to allow yourself to live it and to think ‘How does it make me feel?’”

Tinuke admits lockdown was pretty weird: “But I guess I was luckier than a lot of people.”

First of all, because all her loved ones are safe. Second, because Tinuke admits she is suited to the lockdown mentality

“I am quite an obsessive hobbyist. I do random obsessive hobbies like embroidery. And then I got into choral arrangements… and then roller skates! And that got me through lockdown. It was pretty devastating. I lost a lot of work, but everybody did. At least we were all in the same position.

“I was in the middle of rehearsals when lockdown happened. We were rehearsing at the Orange Tree in week three of four. We went in on the Monday and we were rehearsing and the theatre closed that night. We spent the whole day rehearsing scenes knowing that the play wasn’t really going to be happening. Then we all went home and said ‘See you tomorrow’ – and then we didn’t.”

Crave contains strong language and is recommended for ages 16+.

Tickets from Chichester Festival Theatre.

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