Brutality With a Purpose in Brilliantly Directed ‘Cleansed’

Walk into the doors for “Cleansed,” and you’re assaulted: glaring white lights blind you, and disturbing music throbs in the background. Caution tape ropes off the Loeb Drama Center Mainstage’s eerily bare seating, and you are forced backstage. In front of you lie a chain-link fence surrounded by exposed piping and brick, a black wall stained with clawing handprints, and a gaping, water-filled hole that spans the entire mud-strewn stage. Already, director Matthew C. Stone ’11 has set the unnerving tone that will carry the play, and already it has defied expectations.

To describe “Cleansed”—which runs until April 30 on the Loeb Mainstage—as a play about love in the face of brutality does not do it justice. It tackles many themes that are too often dealt with superficially: human nature, the triumph and failures of love, brutality, terror. The treatment of these in “Cleansed” is anything but superficial. Rather, the play focuses on them so intimately it pushes past the point of discomfort and into the realm of pain. While such a tense, emotional atmosphere could feel overdone or monotonous, exceedingly skillful direction and impressive acting make “Cleansed” an indubitable success.

“Cleansed” takes place in a university reminiscent of a concentration camp. The sadistic Tinker (Stewart N. Kramer ’12) reigns over the ‘dysfunctional’—homosexual lovers Rod (Brandon J. Ortiz ’12) and Carl (Dan J. Giles ’13), suicidal Robin (an absolute standout performance by Joe G. Hodgkin ’12), and incestuous Grace (Rebecca E. Feinberg ’13) and her deceased brother and former lover Graham (Benjamin J. Lorenz ’14)—and ‘treats’ them through rape, torture, and brutality. It is against this background that playwright Sarah Kane explores love and human nature.

Though the acting feels a bit forced at the outset, sound (Stone), lighting (Bethina Liu ’13 and Lora D. Stoianova ’13), and set design (Snoweria Zhang ’12) combine to create an apprehensive tone that the cast later carry brilliantly. Lighting design continues to stand out throughout the show, as Liu and Stoianova aptly amplify subtle mood changes. In the closing scene, Carl extends his arm to Grace, who takes it in her hand. This slight movement could possibly be overlooked, and yet carries great significance in the play. In exchanging a harsh blue for a warm red light, Liu and Stoianova ensure that this seemingly incidental act creates a conspicuous shift in mood.

“Cleansed” contains several scenes in which all aspects of the play come together for remarkably powerful effect. In one such moment, Tinker forces Robin to eat an entire box of chocolates in a span of minutes. Hodgkin’s physical mannerisms are brilliant. Cowering on a bed and leaning as far away from Tinker as possible, he exudes timidity and fear. As Tinker violently throws each chocolate in front of him, Robin takes them, shoving each in his mouth and chewing with animalistic desperation. Though his interpretation sometimes misses Tinker’s psychological complexity, Kramer masters his character at the end of this scene. He stands on the bed looking down at Robin, hips cocked, body erect, head high, his very posture reinforcing his ability to ruin lives and his lack of feeling towards those he destroys.

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of producing “Cleansed” is rendering horrific emotional and physical trauma on stage, an aspect in which this production succeeds with remarkable maturity and affective force. Though successful throughout the play, Feinberg’s best moment was a scene in which Grace is beaten and raped by an unseen man. As the sounds of the beatings play, her body convulses with imaginary blows, and she lets out emotive screams and groans. While Grace is being raped, Feinberg confronts the audience, her face incredibly expressive and her body moving jerkily. Though the scene is long and deeply discomfiting, Feinberg’s chilling rendition of Grace demands full attention to the misdeeds that befall her character and lends the scene incredible power.

While the acting is superb, the direction in “Cleansed” is the key to its success. The play is a series of 20 scenes, all in rapid succession, and all of which cover brutal or intense material. Done poorly, this could get repetitive. Done with mediocrity, it could be overwhelming. However, done well, the play can be incredibly wrenching. And so it is. Rather than bombarding the audience with a succession of atrocities simply for the sake of showing brutality, everything is purposeful, and nothing seems superfluous. There are two rape scenes, multiple amputation scenes, two beating scenes, and three death scenes, and yet none of these feels like any of the others. Stone creates such emotion and suspense that, rather than numbing by repetition, each scene has a unique effect. In one of the death scenes, Robin hangs himself. Stone first builds up tension, as Robin calls Grace’s name more and more desperately. Then, he ends the scene with such a vivid, horrifying image by allowing Robin’s body to sway uninhibited for a few moments that the scene cannot be ignored. Never—from the moment the audience walks in to the theater to the curtain call—is the audience permitted to rest.

“Does it hurt? Do you want me to stop?” Tinker asks his partner during sex. Stone never asks these questions as he bombards the audience with scene after painful scene. It hurts. We want it to stop. And yet, in the end, it is this insistence to maintain the intensity that makes the play so powerful and successful.

—Staff writer Keerthi Reddy can be reached at kreddy@college.harvard.edu.