Ein Theaterstück

In an empty, reflected room, offenders and victims can hardly be distinguished. Here, you will find finely interwoven love scenes of brother and sister, man and man, man and woman. Love as a key problem of our time in one piece, which is so intense that it leaves the heart both racing and standing still. »Oczyszczeni« (»Cleansed«), directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski under the title »Purifiés«, was celebrated as a moment of glory for European theatre at the Festival d’Avignon in the summer of 2002, and it has remained so ever since.

»Cleansed«, written by Sarah Kane (1971-99) and premièred in London in 1998, shows the patients of an institution controlled by Trinker – a torturer and psychiatrist. The piece revolves around the central question of what is the most that a lover can honestly promise.

Krzysztof Warlikowski, born in Szczecin in 1962, is one of the best-known young generation Polish directors. He studied history, philosophy and history of theatre in Kraków and Paris and produced a great deal of Shakespeare, ancient Greek drama, and several operas. His work has mainly been at the Stary Teatr in Kraków and the Teatr Rozmaitości in Warsaw, as well as in Hamburg, Stuttgart, Milan, Tel Aviv and Nice.

»›Cleansed‹ – a laboratory of loneliness. Warlikowski’s production … is an amazing vision of the piece; very tender, very sad, almost poetic. Its subject is yearning for love, not brutality on the way. The dreadful scenes of mutilation are only implied symbolically: with hand gestures, music and screams … The actors immerse themselves in their tragic characters with great calm and concentration, and the meditative devotion of the production draws the audience irresistibly under its spell« (Renate Klett, Theater heute, Berlin, March 2002).