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Cleansed review – Sarah Kane’s visions of brutal torture resonate more intensely than ever

Cleansed review – Sarah Kane’s visions of brutal torture resonate more intensely than ever

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Almeida theatre, London Rebecca Frecknall pulls off this notoriously difficult 1998 play, in which appalling cruelty and violence is balanced against human yearning for love and beauty Sarah Kane was much berated for the graphic violence in her plays during her lifetime. But critics beware: if you choose to scold playw

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Almeida theatre, London Rebecca Frecknall pulls off this notoriously difficult 1998 play, in which appalling cruelty and violence is balanced against human yearning for love and beauty Sarah Kane was much berated for the graphic violence in her plays during her lifetime.

But critics beware: if you choose to scold playwrights for too much blood-letting and grotesque acts of human cruelty, you would surely have to condemn the Greeks, the Grand Guignol and Shakespeare, too.

Perhaps it’s the in-yer-face nature of Kane’s gore that offends.

Certainly in this 1998 play there is no flinching from horror, which comes through acts of sensational cruelty. “Death isn’t the worst thing they can do to you,” a character reflects, and his words illustrate themselves with the rapes, mutilations and beatings that follow.

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