„Cleansed” at the 3rd Festival „Wybrzeze Sztuki” („Coast of Art”)

Sarah Kane's „Cleansed”, directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski, a famous production of Wroclawski Teatr Wspolczesny –  a coproduction, premiered in 2001, with TR Warszawa, Teatr Polski in Poznań, Hebbel-Theater in Berlin and the European Culture Commission's programme Theorem – will open, on 26 June, the third edition of the Festival „Wybrzeze Sztuki” („Coast of Art”) in the Tricity.

The production provoked stormy discussions among the audience and many polemics in the press; it revolutionised the Polish theatre, breaking aesthetic and moral canons. Since its opening (15.12.2001), it has been applauded almost worldwide. One of the first cases of staging Sarah Kane's drama in Poland. Konrad's Laurel at the 6th Directing Art Festival "Interpretacje" in Katowice, Award of the French Union of Theatre Critics for the most remarkable foreign language production in the season 2002/2003 in France.

„Cleansed” will be presented at the Big Stage of Teatr Wybrzeze in Gdansk twice: on 26 and 27 June.

Cast of the festival performances: Mariusz Bonaszewski (Tinker), Małgorzata Hajewska-Krzysztofik (Grace), Redbad Klijnstra (Graham), Stanisława Celińska (kobieta), Jacek Poniedziałek (Rod), Thomas Schweiberer (Carl), Tomasz Tyndyk (Robin), Renate Jett (monologue, singing), Fabian Włodarek (musician).

„...Warlikowski has managed to strike with poetry. To physically shock with poetry. The actors are fantastic, all of them. Warlikowski leads them to a profound participation in a collective experience, guides them through altered states of conscience with an intensity that allows involving the audience. (...) Cold and sharp. As a razor cutting the eyelids.” [Piotr Gruszczyński, „Ojcobójcy”]

„Every scene is a story of a spasm. Delight and pain, kindness and brutality, it is like this all the time. Not even for a while will we leave the disturbing areas of identity, beginning with an exchange of clothes that becomes an introduction to a change of sex. To love means literally to take the other's sex – that is what the production tells us. We will see a man kissing his lover, whose hands, tongue and legs are successively amputated. Cruelty is like dung on which blue flowers of love are growing”. [Jean-Pierre Thibaudat, „Liberation”]

photo Stefan Okolowicz