Lynx Performance Art, the small-budget theatre company that loves to suck the guts out of you, twist your heart and upset your soul, currently produces the late Sarah Kane’s “Crave.” It continues only through June 11, so hurry if you want to be awed by its chaotic exploration of the dark side of what love can do.
A native of Great Britain, Kane suffered from depression and wrote only a handful of envelope-pushing plays before she hanged herself in 1999 while institutionalized. She was 28.
Structured like an avant-garde string quartet, “Crave” is written for four actors who sit at corners of a small, empty square. The audience sits on the four sides, cheek-by-jowl with the actors. Microphone chords lie tangled at center stage. The intimacy is almost unbearable, and I found myself closing my eyes to relieve the tension.
The hour-long experience begins with an electronic hum that increases in intensity and then finds tonality “” a troubled mind in E flat. Underlying the dialogue, one hears the recorded voice of Shelia Chandra and continuing electronics, which the actors sometimes duplicate. The actors speak, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes during another’s silence or intake of breath. The tone veers between hope and despondency, cajoling and the lashing-out.
There may be no one more fitted for orchestrating such emanations than Lynx artistic director Al Germani, a theater artist who has been a psychotherapist for 24 years. Kane’s brilliant pas de quatre is lyrical, tough and redemptive. Whether the ultimate redemption lies in the possibility of life or the achievement of craved oblivion is for the listener to decide.
Starring Sonya Bender, Jo Dempsey, Jennifer Jonassen and Andrew Kennedy, “Crave” continues at 9 p.m. Friday and 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (except May 27-28) through June 11 at San Diego Danceworks, 2653 Ariane Drive (parking and entrance in the rear). For information, call (619) 889-3190 or visit www.lynxperformance.com.