Review: CLEANSED at Almeida Theatre

That the writer was 28 when she took her own life, seems to play to a determination among many in theatre circles, to keep her memory alive. Some even attribute a kind of sainthood to her, but why? For the answer to that question, you’d have to ask those who obsessively place her on a pedestal, for I confess, I am not such an acolyte.

Kane doesn’t merely shock, disturb and unsettle those who watch her plays like the new production of CLEANSED from 1998, which has just opened at the Almeida. In the hands of an adept and insightful director such as Rebecca Frecknall, working with a faultless and talented cast, the work truly comes to life. Unfortunately it also becomes compulsive and repulsive viewing. The occasional sensitive moment determinedly gives way to unrelentingly cruel, dismally dark, degrading, and sadistic episodes. It’s not just the merciless beatings and ceaseless humiliation done to victims but the wholesale grinding down of their optimism, foolish innocence and core humanity.

Gay lovers discuss the exchanging of rings as a token of commitment. The sweet effusiveness of one, is off-set by the seeming cynicism and reticence towards participating in soppy, largely meaningless gestures, by the other. A sister craves communion with her late brother who died of a drug overdose while at a facility. She insists on wearing his clothes, which have to be peeled off the living beneficiary, another troubled inmate to whom they were bequeathed. Nakedness is paraded as shameful by some and insignificant by others. Hands, feet and a tongue are irreparably mangled and bloodied while an eyeball is injected with a narcotics-loaded syringe. The extreme beatings are neatly choreographed mimes, and there’s a suicide for good measure. The entire cast are a thoroughly commendable and supremely talented bunch. They include: Leo Bill (as Tinker), Parth Thakerar (as Rod), Pearl Chanda (as Grace), Jack Riddiford (as Graham), Lizzy Connolly (as Woman), Stuart Thompson (as Robin) and Luke Cinque-White (as Carl) who musters his ballet training to writhe in excruciating agony in various situations.

A deeply troubled soul she may well have been, but that’s not reason enough to perpetuate the ludicrously over-hyped myth that Sarah Kane was some kind of Avant-garde genius. Toward the final elements of last evening’s press night performance, I determined never to put myself through the wretched torture of a Sarah Kane play, ever again. Perhaps understandably, she is rarely performed anyway, so there’s little chance, but three times in one lifetime is three times too many and I have played along with this obscene, Emperor’s New Clothes nonsense, long enough.

In my line of work however, it is vitally important to encourage theatregoers to make up their own minds and I strongly urge you to bite the bullet (or neck, feet, shoulders and nipples — as happens at various stages during CLEANSED), and make your own assessment. You will know pretty quickly whether monstrous acts of barbaric unkindness are your thing or not. You could even make a theatrical double bill of it, and take-in a matinee performance of Trainspotting the Musical beforehand! Now there’s a prospective overdose with which to curl the toes.