Graphic scenes in stage revival of Sarah Kane’s play prove too much for viewers, with 40 leaving early in first six shows

Five people have fainted watching the graphic scenes of torture, rape and violence in the National Theatre’s latest production while 40 walked out in the show’s first week.

Cleansed, written by Sarah Kane and directed by Katie Mitchell, is a punishing story of a university that is turned into a sadistic totalitarian institution.

The revival of the production features characters being electrocuted, force-fed and tortured – including the removal of one character’s tongue 20 minutes into the play – which has proved too much for dozens of audience members during the first six performances.

Cleansed review – Katie Mitchell plunges us into Sarah Kane's chamber of horrors Read more

Five others were so overwhelmed they fainted and required medical attention. During one preview, the lights in the auditorium went up and ushers came into the audience to help a man who had collapsed.

Cleansed was first staged at the Royal Court in 1998, the year before Kane killed herself aged 28. Despite her radical influence, this is the first time one of her plays has been staged at the National theatre- a debut the National Theatre artistic director Rufus Norris has said is “long overdue”.



Mitchell admitted the production had taken its toll on the cast, who all had “very strange nightmares where very extreme events take place”. She told Radio 4: “We have to laugh a lot in order to balance the despair and the darkness of the material.”

But she argued people’s shock at the violent production was also related to the fact it was written by a young woman. “There isn’t a big tradition of putting the violence of atrocity on stage in Britain,” she said. “We’re afraid of that dark female voice that insists we examine pornography and violence. We just don’t feel comfortable being asked to do those things, particularly by a woman.”

The production’s unpalatable nature has not been a hit with critics. The Daily Mail gave it just one star, accusing it of gratuitous violence, while the Guardian’s theatre critic, Michael Billington, said: “For all the play’s visceral power, it left me feeling drained rather than shocked into new awareness.”

Kane was propelled to notoriety in 1995 after her first production, Blasted, at the Royal Court, prompted newspapers and critics to denounce the “atrocities” and “feats of filth” on display. She went on to write just four more plays- Phaedra’s Love (1996), Cleansed (1998), Crave (1998) and 4.48 Psychosis (1999)- before she killed herself. Kane’s struggles with severe depression often fed into her work.

On its first staging in 1998, Cleansed was the most expensive production in the Royal Court’s history. Kane said it had been inspired by Roland Barthes’ writing which compared being in love to being in Auschwitz.

Similar to Mitchell’s revival of the play, the first outing of Cleansed in 1998 divided critics. John Gross, writing for the Daily Telegraph, said: “The play is miserable stuff - which is not to say, current fashions being what they are, that I can’t foresee Sarah Kane enjoying a successful career.”

Impressions on Twitter included:

Aliya Ram (@aliya__ram) go go go to Sarah Kane's Cleansed at the National Theatre. so raw my play-mate passed out: https://t.co/zEpLqogNVT pic.twitter.com/dybH33kPPk