THEOREM - CLEANSED

« Sarah Kane exposes problems that deal closely with identity. She talks about homosexuality, incest and barely defined sexuality. It is almost impossible to emerge from her wordsuntouched. They have a contagious effect, dragging those who handle themfar away with them. It would be out of the question to perform her plays with acting puppets. You have to dare to prerform with all sincerity and honesty that she shows in writing, otherwise there's no poin tin acting her work. You have to be true and capable of the same abandon she expresses when articulating very personal matters with startling directness. The show addresses us all because everybody knows he/she is doomed; Sarah Kane shows us that there is worse. Of course, I had to find the solution and the meaning of this violence, so that the performance wasn't just about shocking the spectator. But Cleansed is not a text where you can prepare yourself, beforehand, for everything you will experience through it. There is no notion of good or evil and no judgement to make. Its violence has become my violence. A violence that doesn't just appear in the street but that has become internalised, a violence resulting from the fear for life. I would like to open an internal path in each of us that would lead only to ourselves, to our sexuality, to our fear for life and the desire to stand in front of our second unity, according to the platonic idea that everybody has a similar creature.
To a certain extent, Sarah Kane goes back to a form of naive love. By writing this text, she shares a tender thought with us. Like me, she was drawing a flower, to give light and joy to her internal universe.
In staging Cleansed, I rape the audience […] as I let life rape me. I allowed the armour given to me by society to be destroyed. I am not in darkness, but in an eternal quest. But I have no objective. Like Brook or Lupa, my masters, I am searching beyond the limits. I want to go beyond, just as I am, as I feel, a creature who is not ashamed to share itself in this way. Like Sarah Kane, I don't hide myself. I don't seek refuge behind the intellect. »

Krzysztof Warlikowski
Interview with Joëlle Gayot for the Festival d’Avignon (March 2002)

Cleansed (Oczyszeni) By Sarah Kane Directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski (Poland)
Translation Krzysztof Warlikowski and Jacek Poniedzialek Set design Malgorzata Szczesniak Music Pawel Mykietyn Singing Renate Jett (Austria) Lights Felice Ross (Israel) Starring Mariusz Bonaszewski, Stanislawa Celinska, Malgorzata Hajewska Krzysztofik, Renate Jett, Redbad Klynstra, Jacek Poniedzialek, Thomas Schweiberer, Tomasz Tyndyk, Fabian Wlodarek Premiere: December 15, 2001, Teatr Wspólczesny in Wroclaw (Poland) Co-production Teatr Wspólczesny (Wroclaw), Teatr Rozmaitosci (Warsaw), Teatr Polski (Poznan), Hebbel Theater (Berlin), THEOREM (association supported by the Culture 2000 programme of the European Union)
« Sarah Kane exposes problems that deal closely with identity. She talks about homosexuality, incest and barely defined sexuality. It is almost impossible to emerge from her wordsuntouched. They have a contagious effect, dragging those who handle themfar away with them. It would be out of the question to perform her plays with acting puppets. You have to dare to prerform with all sincerity and honesty that she shows in writing, otherwise there's no poin tin acting her work. You have to be true and capable of the same abandon she expresses when articulating very personal matters with startling directness. The show addresses us all because everybody knows he/she is doomed; Sarah Kane shows us that there is worse. Of course, I had to find the solution and the meaning of this violence, so that the performance wasn't just about shocking the spectator. But Cleansed is not a text where you can prepare yourself, beforehand, for everything you will experience through it. There is no notion of good or evil and no judgement to make. Its violence has become my violence. A violence that doesn't just appear in the street but that has become internalised, a violence resulting from the fear for life. I would like to open an internal path in each of us that would lead only to ourselves, to our sexuality, to our fear for life and the desire to stand in front of our second unity, according to the platonic idea that everybody has a similar creature. To a certain extent, Sarah Kane goes back to a form of naive love. By writing this text, she shares a tender thought with us. Like me, she was drawing a flower, to give light and joy to her internal universe. In staging Cleansed, I rape the audience […] as I let life rape me. I allowed the armour given to me by society to be destroyed. I am not in darkness, but in an eternal quest. But I have no objective. Like Brook or Lupa, my masters, I am searching beyond the limits. I want to go beyond, just as I am, as I feel, a creature who is not ashamed to share itself in this way. Like Sarah Kane, I don't hide myself. I don't seek refuge behind the intellect. » Krzysztof Warlikowski Interview with Joëlle Gayot for the Festival d’Avignon (March 2002)

Cleansed (Oczyszeni)

Cleansed
(Oczyszeni)