Cleansed

Carrie

@cphill

I was slightly nervous before seeing this production. Having read Sarah Kane’s plays at drama school, I knew it wasn’t going to be an uplifting experience. Brutal, traumatic, unrelenting, visceral, and more blood packets than a closing down sale at blood-packets-R-US. It was quite an assaulting experience, and with no interval and a 1 hour 40 run time, you felt as trapped as the characters in this abject misery. However, all that said, it was an excellent production of a famously difficult -to-stage play. It was very affecting and thought provoking. The torture scenes were pretty horrendous to watch, but immediately brought to mind scenes of war zones and detainees. The violence wasn’t gratuitous, but echoed real-world horrors that you’d rather be ignorant of. It was mentally and emotionally draining, but then so is the 10 o’clock news…the production expertly drew out these parallels in Kane’s work. We left the theatre exhausted and shellshocked, but deep in thought.