Play
Cleansed
Sarah Kane tests love against almost unimaginable cruelty in a play where tenderness and violence exist uncomfortably close together.
Productions
Past productions(4)
- Almeida Theatre · London — 21 July – 29 August 2026
- National Theatre · London — 16 February – 5 May 2016
- Royal Court Theatre · London — 30 April – 30 May 1998
- Arcola Theatre · London — 2 November – 3 December 2005
Kane’s 1998 play follows two lovers and two siblings inside an institution controlled by the enigmatic Tinker. Their relationships are subjected to increasingly extreme tests as the play strips away ordinary ideas of identity, the body and what people can promise one another. Rebecca Frecknall directs this 2026 Almeida revival.
A stark, highly physical piece of theatre with relatively little interest in conventional realism. Images, movement and sudden transformations carry as much weight as dialogue, moving between tenderness and graphic brutality. The production contains torture and violence, including sexual violence, as well as nudity, sex, drug abuse, suicide, blood and discriminatory language.
formally adventurous drama, Sarah Kane and 1990s British theatre, intense studies of love and desire, and productions that use physical imagery as much as dialogue.
Kane’s 1998 play follows two lovers and two siblings inside an institution controlled by the enigmatic Tinker. Their relationships are subjected to increasingly extreme tests as the play strips away ordinary ideas of identity, the body and what people can promise one another. Rebecca Frecknall directs this 2026 Almeida revival.
A stark, highly physical piece of theatre with relatively little interest in conventional realism. Images, movement and sudden transformations carry as much weight as dialogue, moving between tenderness and graphic brutality. The production contains torture and violence, including sexual violence, as well as nudity, sex, drug abuse, suicide, blood and discriminatory language.
formally adventurous drama, Sarah Kane and 1990s British theatre, intense studies of love and desire, and productions that use physical imagery as much as dialogue.
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