img_8965Here’s a tough assignment, but a worthy one- and you have only two more chances to experience it: See BLASTED, presented by Off the Grid Theatre Company. John Kuntz directs a fearless three person cast who in 90 minutes rip our guts out. BLASTED by Sarah Kane forces us to confront the cruelties human beings inflict on one another, in intimate relationship, in society, and in warfare.  The theater space itself is small and reinforces the explosiveness of the play’s intimate setting: a hotel room under siege, in the middle of England, and everywhere.

We know little about the relationship among the characters who will confront each other here: Ian (Christopher James Webb) a racist, sexist homophobe and armed tabloid journalist whose specialty is local murder, and his one time girlfriend Cate (Alexis Scheer) who meets him there. They dance around each other, engage in sexual banter, playful and angry exchanges, mounting emotional abuse, until the tension culminates in a few ugly sometimes furtive sexual encounters. Then an explosion.

Enter a soldier (Maurice Emmanuel Parent) who proceeds to exact a hideous revenge on Ian, the visceral extension of the battle between Ian and Cate.  Eventually we witness the grotesque fallout of the atrocities we perpetrate on each other. The actors convince, the direction drives the implications home, and we are grateful it’s only 90 minutes long, though the ugly news of the day awaits as we exit the theater. BLASTED blasts us out of our comfort zone. See this through 9/18 At BCA CALDERWOOD PAVILION.