Crave by Sarah Kane. Chichester Festival Theatre to 7 November 2020 & streamed. 4****. William Russell

Chichester was planning to present Kane's play, first performed by Paines Plough at the Traverse in 1998, in th Spiegel Tent when the pandemic struck, It has re-opened the main house where it is being performed before a socially distanced audience and also streamed, so that the streaming audience shares the moment with the one the actors are playing to. The 5o minute play has four characters, two men, two women. They are in a ruined world. They talk to the world around them rather than one another, they talk about wanting, finding, losing love.
It has been performed many times elsewhere in very different ways. This one, however, is unique in that it is intended to reach th audience in the theatre and the audience world wife who watch it being streamed.
In it Kane's four lost souls they are set against a black void, each one walking on a moving walkway up and down, sometimes vanishing only to reappear, sometimes talking to the void, sometimes it seems reacting to another person. In the darkness shapes materialise and disappear which seem to have a life of their own. The effect is disturbing, puzzling and, as the collage of speeches build itself, very moving.
Tickets cam be purchased on line from the Theatre - just google. You are in for an astonishing 50 minutes.

The cast
Erin Doherty
Alfred Enoch
Wendy Kweh
Jonathan Slinger

Director Tinuke Craig
Designers: Alex Lownde
Lighting Designer: Joshua Pharo.
Film Designer: Ravi Deepres.
Composer: Anna Clock.
Movement Director: Jennie Ogilvie.
Photograph: CFT.