Britain's most controversial young playwright, Sarah Kane, has killed herself, it emerged last night.
It is understood that she was found hanged in her flat in London early on Saturday. Acting on her family's wishes, her agent would reveal no details of the circumstances surrounding her death.
Kane, who was 27, became famous at a precocious age for her dark style and her graphic portrayal of gruelling emotional and physical violence. Several friends said yesterday that her bleak perspective on the human condition had made her at times intensely depressed and may have prompted her suicide.
Kane's first play, Blasted, staged at the Royal Court when she was just 23, featured cannibalism and male and female rape. It thrust her into the media limelight and won her instant notoriety as the new enfant terrible of the British theatre.
It caused an instant scandal as critics reacted with horror. The Daily Mail described it as 'a systematic trawl through the deepest pits of human degradation'; elsewhere it was condemned as 'a disgusting piece of filth'.
With her subsequent plays Phaedra's Love, Cleansed and Crave, Kane carved a more permanent slot for herself at the cutting edge of modern drama.
Contemporaries and colleagues last night paid tribute to her talents. Ian Rickson, artistic director of the Royal Court, said: 'Sarah was a profound human being and a true poet of the theatre. All of us at the Royal Court are so proud to have been closely associated with her bright, brilliant career.' His predecessor Stephen Daldry, who staged her first play, added: 'I find the news unbelievably distressing. One of my primary experiences of Sarah has been her empathy and compassion and joy.' Friend and fellow playwright Mark Ravenhill, often described as her closest contemporary, said: 'She was in complete control of her medium.' The Guardian's theatre critic, Michael Billington, said: 'People in Britain never realised the extent of her fame throughout Europe. Wherever I went I found an extraordinary curiosity about her work and what it said about contemporary Britain.' Her agent and close friend Mel Kenyon said: 'I don't think she was depressed, I think it was deeper than that. I think she felt something more like existential despair which is what makes many artists tick.' Kane admitted she found the creative process gruelling. A character in Crave says: 'I write the truth and it kills me.' In a recent interview, the playwright said she felt much the same.
