Sarah Kane's Cleansed was produced at the National Theatre in 2016, directed by Katie Mitchell. Here's a look at why Cleansed is a challenge for actors and directors, how the cast tackled the script in the rehearsal room, and what Kane might have intended by including seemingly impossible stage directions.

I did an interview for the National Theatre a few months ago for a series of videos about Sarah Kane's work. The first (above) concerns her apparently 'unstageable' and 'impossible' texts. It features interviews with playwright Simon Stephens, actors George Taylor, Peter Hobday and Graham Butler, and me. It's got some great images from Katie Mitchell's production. The second and third (below) offer overviews of her work, going sequentially through all the plays. I think they've done a pretty great job. Emma Reidy did the interviews and, I think, edited it too.

Sarah Kane changed the landscape of British theatre with five plays that were first performed between 1995-2000, and continue to be performed around the world today. In the first of two films in our Sarah Kane collection, we explore Blasted, Phaedra's Love and Cleansed. Watch part two here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoJM1rA_HDQ

Sarah Kane changed the landscape of British theatre with five plays that were first performed between 1995-2000, and continue to be performed around the world today. In this final film on Kane's work, we examine the latter two plays, Crave and 4.48 Psychosis.

Sarah Kane video

Dan Rebellato