Overview
- Rebecca Frecknall’s production of Sarah Kane’s Cleansed is playing at the Almeida Theatre and runs through 29 August.
- Press-night coverage reported at least one audience member fainted during the performance and Front of House staff assisted the person who quickly recovered.
- The staging uses highly realistic illusion work overseen by an illusionist to depict amputations, hangings and other violent set pieces alongside an intimacy director and a dramatherapist.
- The Almeida has published detailed content warnings listing prolonged nudity, torture, sexual violence, mutilation, needles and blood and offers a post-show decompression space and a self-care guide for audience members.
- Reviews are sharply split with some critics praising the production’s craft and its thread of tenderness while others describe the onslaught of violence as excessive or numbing, a response shaped by Kane’s fraught history and past productions that drew similar visceral reactions.