Cleansed

TUE May 11 4:30 pm Konvikt / K3
premiere at Flora Theatre Festival

Sarah Kane
CLEANSED and when I don't feel it, it's pointless
Divadlo na cucky / CZ

director Anna Petrželková
dramatic adviser Jan Žůrek
stage design Petr Jakšík
lighting Jakub Janča
cast Tomáš Uher, Tereza Richtrová, Ondřej Jiráček, Zdeněk Vévoda,
Ján Smolka, Bořek Joura, Ema Jurková


Cleansed is set in what Kane in her stage directions described as a university but which functions more as a torture chamber or concentration camp, overseen by the sadistic Tinker. It places a young woman and her brother, a disturbed boy, a gay couple and a peepshow dancer within this world of extreme cruelty in which declarations of love are viciously tested. It pushes the limits of what can be realised in the theatre: stage directions include “a sunflower pushes through the floor and grows above their heads" and “the rat begins to eat Carl's hand".


Sarah Kane (1971–1999) was an English playwright. Her plays deal with themes of redemptive love, sexual desire, pain, torture — both physical and psychological — and death. They are characterised by poetic intensity, pared-down language, exploration of theatrical form and, in her earlier work, the use of extreme and violent stage action. Kane herself, as well as scholars of her work, identify some of her inspirations as expressionist theatre and Jacobean tragedy.


Anna Petrželková (b. 1984) ranks among a score of chief young theatre artists cooperating with Divadlo na cucky theatre company based in Olomouc, Czech Republic. She graduated in theatre direction from Bratislava's VŠMU academy and her graduation project, Hedda Gabler, appeared at Flora Theatre Festival 2008. After finishing her studies, she started prolific collaboration with major Czech and Slovak theatre companies, e.g. Casmir and Caroline at Mestské divadlo Žilina, Nora at State Theatre Košice, Svrbí (Itch) at Prague's A Studio Rubín or Marx Bros. at HaDivadlo Brno.