Within a minute or two of Cleansed’s ominously percussive start we see Tom Mothersdale’s brilliantly creepy Tinker, who appears to be a doctor, inject a lethal dose of heroin into the eye of a young man called Graham.
It’s the first of many shocking acts in Sarah Kane’s play, which suggests that violence is inherently ritualistic and that torture can be strangely redemptive. She described it as “essentially a love story”, and it’s true that amid the atrocities there’s a nagging sense of love as a form of madness, an act of defiance that can be devastatingly brutal.
Each of the seven characters has a confused but powerful idea of what it means to be attached to another person. Michelle Terry’s Grace longs for Graham, who was her brother, and merges with his ghostly remains. Matthew Tennyson’s Robin nurses a tense, pathetic affection for Grace. A gay couple, Rod and Carl, have their loyalty viciously tested. The repellent yet fragile Tinker projects his thoughts of Grace on to a nameless woman (Natalie Klamar) who dances for him at a peepshow, and their relationship reveals his capacity for the very kind of romantic yearning which he’s previously been so determined to annihilate.
Kane’s writing seethes with memorable images. Tinker forces Robin to eat an entire box of chocolates, one at a time. Carl’s hands and feet are cut off. Rats are shot and then grimly displayed. Besides the gruesome moments there are tender ones — Robin is transfixed by an abacus he plucks from a fire, daffodils burst through the floor, and a single sunflower stands tall like a beacon of fertility.
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Katie Mitchell’s scrupulously crafted revival, set in what looks like a crumbling hospital, is the first time Kane’s work has been staged at the National Theatre. Instead of conjuring up a swirling dreamscape, it’s gorily immediate, accentuating Tinker’s twisted voyeurism and the sheer bloodiness of his actions. It’s hard to watch and occasionally repugnant, but it makes a compelling case for the distinctiveness of Kane’s vision — uncompromising, ugly, cruel and intoxicating.
Until May 5, National's Dorfman (020 7452 3000, nationaltheatre.org.uk)
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